The Prodigal Uzumaki
by Senju Naruto
Summary: A six year old Uzumaki Naruto runs into a forest outside Konoha's walls after pulling a prank. He stumbles upon a clearing in the forest that has a cottage in it, but this is not anybody's cottage...it's the cottage of his hero, the Yondaime Hokage. Strong/smart Naruto
1. Chapter 1

**The Prodigal ****Uzumaki**

**A/N:**

**This is my second attempt at writing a fanfic.**

**I've had this idea in my head for a while now so I'm doing this just to see how it turns out.**

**Anyway here is the first chapter.**

**I've fixed up a few plot points so as to make the story more realistic…**

**Enjoy**

Chapter One: Accidental Discovery

Uzumaki Naruto was what many would call unlucky. He was born on the day when a great tragedy befell Konoha; said tragedy ended up taking away both of his parents and thus he became an orphan. Unlike most orphans though Naruto was special, you could tell just by looking into his eyes that the boy was destined for greatness, but with his bad luck it just might not happen.

He was a boy who was cursed from birth. The day he was born was the day a great evil befell the village he lived in. It was attacked by a ferocious, malevolent, evil, powerful beast that was known as the Kyuubi no Kitsune. In order to save the village that he had sworn his honour and pride on to protect, the Yondaime Hokage of Konoha, Namikaze Minato, damned Naruto into a life of bad luck.

Despite Minato wishing for Naruto to be seen as a hero for saving the village, the village treated Naruto as if he were some sort of plague. They did not do anything that would physically harm the boy, but they did something far worse. They ignored his existence, staying as far away from him as possible and giving him looks that no child should ever have the chance to see. Their looks were of hatred, hatred for the beast inside of Naruto, but because of the fact that they could not alleviate their pain by punishing the actual Kyuubi with such looks of hatred they settled for the next best thing, the Kyuubi's container.

The adults gave him looks filled with hatred, and the children of the village stayed away from him. All of this caused Uzumaki Naruto to be one lonely child that ended up developing an insatiable craving to seek attention.

That was why almost every day since turning four Uzumaki Naruto would perform a prank on someone. They started of small since he could not do much pranking at the age of four, but as time went by the intensity of his pranks increased to the point where they actually required trained shinobi to try and catch Naruto so that they could punish him accordingly. Naruto, through all the pranks and get-away attempts learned things, valuable things really.

Most people could not see it, and neither could Naruto, but he had one sharp and cunning mind, and the traps he would leave for the shinobi that chased after him were, while not the best, but considering who laid them and how effective they were just showed that Naruto was a genius who just used his energy in the wrong field. Still though Naruto did notice one thing he gained from his pranks, and that was speed.

Naruto at his current age of six could run really, really fast. He had speed that was so great that he could actually outstrip an ordinary genin in a full on sprint, and being chased by chunin gave him a thrill he craved nearly just as much as attention.

Currently though Naruto was being chased by a bunch of chunin (again) for painting swirl patterns all over a district in the village, he did not know which district it was, and he did not care, he just wanted someone to notice him, even if that meant doing bad things because he would rather get scolded for doing something than have his existence completely ignored.

Naruto was running at high genin level speeds as he made a mad dash from the group of shinobi that were sent to apprehend him. The shinobi were covered in feathers and they also had rainbow coloured paint all over them along with furious expressions etched onto their faces. They were being embarrassed by a six year old boy…them, who were supposed to be Konoha's might, reduced to being an embarrassing spectacle for those of the population who found the Demon Kid's pranks to be funny. Hey, there was a black sheep for everything. The majority of the village hated Uzumaki Naruto, but there were those that did not. The biggest example being their boss the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi.

The shinobi currently chasing Naruto could not understand why Naruto was not just outright killed by the Sandaime Hokage, but they knew better than to question a man who wielded more power than them, and also had more experience than any of them. But that did not mean they had to like being made fun off by a kid who just wanted to fulfil some of his daily gags before going to bed.

The chase had been going on for a while now, how this kid had not dropped dead from exhaustion by now was beyond any of the shinobi, but they were still at it. Naruto had taken them on a merry chase around Konoha for the last part of the hour, going into intersections, going through different windows in different buildings and also getting them to set off a few of his traps. Yep, Uzumaki Naruto was the devil in chibi form.

As they continued to chase a madly cackling Naruto they did not notice that Naruto had actually taken their chase outside of the village, where he lead them into the forests that surrounded Konoha as they continued to pursue him like bloodhounds after their kill.

Naruto meanwhile was starting to feel his lungs become strained as his breathing started to become harder. He realised that even a six year old stamina freak like him had to give out eventually, luckily for him though he had a way to escape the pesky chunin that were after his butt.

Naruto quickly entered the first clearing he came across and he stopped and turned around as he watched the shinobi that were chasing him appear before him a second later, all were huffing like he was, although their huffing was a whole lot more bad than his, which were just slight pants.

"Finally given up, brat?" asked one of the shinobi that were chasing him.

Naruto did not answer them; he instead quickly reached into his pocket and drew a smoke bomb that he dropped on to the ground, thus releasing its contents, which were black smoke.

The shinobi coughed for a few seconds trying to get the smoke out of the way, while also asking themselves how a kid like Naruto was able to get his hands on a smoke bomb. When the smoke cleared though the shinobi discovered they were alone, and that gave rise to a new question, "Where the heck was the brat?"

_**Meanwhile with Naruto**_

Naruto was currently running at neck breaking speeds (for him) as he tried to outrun the shinobi sent after him. There was no way that he would lose them for long, which is why he wanted to get out of the forest as quickly as he possibly could, especially since he was tiring out. He had run into the forest to get away from the shinobi, when that failed he decided to reveal his trump card, the smoke bomb. He knew it would not get him too big of a head start back to Konoha but a head start, no matter how small, was a head start none the less.

Still though travelling through this forest Naruto could tell he was lost, no scratch that, he was beyond lost, he just hoped that wondering in the same path as the one he was taking would be beneficial to him. Still he just continued forward, with returning to Konoha's walls his only goal right now. Seconds passed. Soon though it became minutes that just flew by as he continued to run really fast. It became an hour soon enough as Naruto was sure now that the shinobi had lost him, just like how he was lost. He was panting heavily now, he would not stop running until he saw Konoha's walls; that was a self-made promise to himself.

Soon after having thought that though Naruto came upon a clearing and immediately stopped. He saw that in this clearing there was an extremely large open field that housed what was a cottage in the middle of it, and all around it were some sort of sharp objects that Naruto did not know or could he describe them. He may have the speed of a low level chunin, but hey he is six years old. He had only been at the shinobi academy for nearly six months, and in that time Naruto had developed an anti-academic mind set, so there was no way he could describe these things, as all he knew was how to read and write.

Naruto proceeded towards the first of these weird objects that looked like they were impaled onto the ground, though when he was ten feet away from it he suddenly stopped as he felt some sort of external force push against him. He was not sure what it was but he was sure that it was barring him passage to continue towards one of these objects.

After a few minutes of struggling, which angered Naruto greatly, Naruto had finally had enough and he launched himself backwards and decided to run forward at full speed. In his state of rage Naruto ended up channelling some of his chakra as he ran towards the force barring him passage through, and when he was ten metres away Naruto did not stop, instead he just continued until he had made it twenty two feet past his original point.

When he took a look around, he noticed that there was something akin to a translucent barrier that was located where he had previously struggled to get through. The barrier fizzled for a few seconds before it disappeared into thin air.

Naruto thought it weird that there was a barrier there, though he wondered what it protected. He thought that maybe it was meant for the weird objects on the ground, so he ventured towards the closest one and picked it up; inspecting it to see what was so special about it.

After he dislodged the object on the ground and took a look at it he realised that it was a weapon, a special made weapon as he had never seen one like this one before. It looked like a kunai, but was shaped differently from a kunai as it looked like a fork (A/N: he's six, he doesn't know what a trident is, yet), and it was black and it had a handle that had weird markings on it. Naruto also thought that this weapon was heavier than a regular kunai, so whatever it was, he was sure it was powerful.

Naruto kept the weird weapon on him as he made his way towards the cottage that was situated at the centre of the clearing.

He walked up to the ordinary looking cottage, but as he got closer he saw that it had smaller "sub-cottages" o its left and right hand side. He wondered why that was. He eventually made it to the front door of the main cottage that was larger than the other two. He somehow felt that he should not knock seeing as he got this feeling that whoever once lived here was long gone. As Naruto walked up to the front door he took out the weapon he had picked up and he decided to use it as protection from whatever horrors he could encounter on the inside.

Why did he not just run home, oh that's right he could not seeing as he was lost and this was probably the only place for miles on end that he could get something of use from that could help him decipher exactly where he was.

He grabbed hold of the door knob with his left hand while held the weapon in his right hand. The result of doing so was almost instantaneous. He was given the shock of his life as he was electrocuted by powerful bolts of electricity, but he quickly let go in such a hurry that he ended up making the mistake of bringing up his right hand to massage his left hand, thus cutting himself with the weapon. He mentally cursed his rotten luck before he saw some of his blood drop onto the door knob, before the door glowed green for a few seconds before it just opened on its own.

Naruto stepped inside the cottage after the door had swung open on its own after it had stopped glowing. He entered slowly, weird weapon in hand as he crossed the threshold into the cottage. After stepping inside Naruto discovered that it was completely dark inside the cottage, and being a six year old boy Naruto was kind of afraid of the dark. He squinted both of his eyes as he scanned the walls that made up the room he was in. It was not totally dark, thanks to the light that came through the front door.

After searching for nearly a minute Naruto found what he was looking for, the light switch. He walked up to it and turned it on, and he was surprised to find out that the lights were still operational.

Upon the lights being turned on Naruto was able to get a proper view of everything within the room he was in. The room was actually a lounge. Though not particularly big, it also was not small either, just the right size in Naruto's opinion. He saw that the room had three brown leather couches and fire place that looked intact. He scanned the room some more, looking at the different things that were in it.

The lounge, along with the rest of the house was surprisingly clean, how that happened Naruto wondered to himself.

There was not much in the living room, all it had that were the couches, the fire place, a giant Kanji painted onto the floor of the room that was done in black and the most noticeable thing in the room was a giant portrait that was hung over the fire place that had a picture of a man that had spiky blonde hair that had two bangs that of it framed his face along with deep blue eyes and a light tan on his skin tone. The man was shown to be wearing a blue long sleeved t-shirt that had two rubber bands on his forearms, which were delicately wrapped around a second figure.

This figure was a woman that had the reddest hair Naruto had ever seen, so rich and beautiful Naruto thought to himself in his own honest opinion. The woman had a round face and pearl eyes that seemed to have held a lot of love behind them even though it was directed at a camera. The woman was wearing a green dress and a white blouse underneath the dress and she looked like she was heavily pregnant by the looks of things. All in all, the picture depicted a man and woman, no husband and wife that were totally in love with each and their seemingly unborn child.

Seeing their looks of love and admiration for their unborn child made Naruto wonder if his parents ever looked at him, or at least thought about him with those kind of feelings. He quickly banished these thoughts since he knew that they only brought pain to him, so he just shut them off completely and he decided to proceed towards the inner sanctum of the cottage.

He wondered into the hall ways, looking at the plain white walls that had a few pictures hung on them. Naruto saw pictures of the married couple when they were children. They showed different scenarios, like the boy version of the man that owned this place training along with a picture of him and the girl sharing ice cream and another of a teenaged version of the man standing alongside a man that had grey hair and a big grin on his face that also had red lines.

Naruto walked through the rest of the hallway, looking at the different pictures that were hung up on the wall. Naruto ended up in one of the two bedrooms in the cottage. When he walked into the room he saw that it was aligned with weird kanji on its walls along with a giant unreadable kanji on the floor just like in the lounge. He saw that the room had a giant bed along with one built in wardrobe that he immediately went to.

Upon opening the wardrobe Naruto was greeted by a bunch of different clothes that were inside of it. None of them were appealing to Naruto, so he decided to close the wardrobe, but before he could shut it fully he got a glimpse of a white haori that was hung in the wardrobe. Naruto took the haori off the rail and decided to get a proper look at it. The haori was well styled in Naruto's opinion. It had a high collar and a small string that allowed its wearer to tie it so it would not be a bother to him. Along with these features though, it also had a red flame design that was etched towards the edge of its sleeves along with the hem as well.

The Naruto flipped it so he could see its back and he saw that it had kanji on it. He tried to read it looking to understand exactly what who this man might be as it was clear that the kanji on his haori could be his name. Naruto scrunched his eyes trying to make out his name, he may know how to read but he had only had a few months-worth of expertise in the field. He was able to make out that the first set of kanji made up the word _Yondaime_ while the second part he knew almost instantly.

It was the one word he said nearly as much as "dattebayo". It was one of the first words he had programmed into his mind after he learned how to read. The word he was staring at with wide eyes was _Hokage_.

This haori read _Yondaime Hokage_, which would mean that this was the man he had heard so much about that he became his idol. The blonde man was _the _Yondaime Hokage, the man who single handily won Konoha an entire war and defeated the greatest evil known to the world, the Kyuubi no kitsune. He, Uzumaki Naruto, was holding his idols signature haori. He felt so overwhelmed with happiness that he felt like screaming to the world.

He continued to stare at the Yondaime Hokage's haori for a few minutes all while bouncing up and down like an idiotic fan boy. He was so returning with this to Konoha, maybe if he wore it then people would give him the attention he felt he rightfully deserved. But what if it had an opposite effect, where instead of liking him they would end up hating him even more, they would curse his existence even more than they already did. They would call him a thief, and he in particular hated being called that so he opted to just leave the Yondaime's haori back in his closet.

Naruto put the haori back where it belonged and shut the wardrobe door. He looked around the bedroom some more, looking at different things that were in the room like a dangling version of the same weapon that he held in his hand that was in the room, along with the bedside lamp that he turned on and he looked through a few drawers that were in the chest of drawers.

He did not find anything interesting at all, so all he did was sit on his idol's bed while he swung his legs since they barely reached down to the floor. He contemplated what to do. He could just leave everything as it was and go back to Konoha and tell the Sandaime Hokage about his adventures in the forest, but he thought better of it as another idea sprung to mind.

Naruto wanted to be a shinobi so that he could be as awesome as the Yondaime Hokage, and if this was his cottage then there would definitely be some kick ass awesome Jutsu that he could learn from the Yondaime Hokage that would make him awesome. If he told the Sandaime he found the Yondaime Hokage's house then he was sure the old man would forbid him from coming back here ever again, seeing as he denied Naruto a lot of things.

Naruto decided that he would keep it on the down low until he could learn all that he could "from the Yondaime Hokage". He jumped off his hero's bed and made his way towards the next room.

Upon entering it Naruto realised that it was a nursery, a room specially made for new born babies. He looked around the nursery and he noticed a few things, one being that the walls were painted in different colours unlike the other room or the lounge. He also notice a big wooden crib that was situated towards the far side of the room that had an assortment of different stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling over the crib along with the same weapon he had in his hand hung in a similar fashion as the Yondaime's room.

He wondered who was the Yondaime Hokage's son or daughter since no one ever said that he had a child before. Naruto saw some kanji written on the side of the crib, so he decided to walk over to it, and upon getting there he was able to make out what was written on the side of the crib. What he read shocked him to his very core. It was a name, but not just any name. It was his name, Naruto. His name was etched onto the side of the crib, and before he could even fathom what was going on he went into shock for a few minutes.

He did not move, he couldn't move, not after what he had just read. It was impossible; he could not be the son of the Yondaime Hokage. He was an orphan born on the day that the man died, if he truly was the Yondaime's son, then he would know since his Jiji would have told him.

But the more he thought about it the more he realised that it could actually be true. He was the only person in Konoha who had the name of Naruto, and more importantly when he thought back to the picture of the Yondaime Hokage that he had seen in the lounge he realised that it could actually be possible. They both had bright blonde hair and deep blue eyes. Though he may have been lighter toned than the Yondaime and had a round face unlike the Yondaime who had a more pronounced face, but as he thought about it he realised that the woman that was being hugged by the Yondaime had a round face and skin that was similar to his, so he could attribute it to that.

Naruto did not know when it happened or how it actually happened, but he had fallen to the floor, back towards the crib, and he had pulled himself into a ball like shape as he brought his knees up to his chest and he cried. He cried really hard. He cried tears of both joy and sadness at the same time. Joy for possibly found out who his parents were, and sadness for having to found out that they were both dead. The Yondaime was confirmed to be dead, but his wife, no his (Naruto's) mother, had not as far as Naruto knew.

He would allow himself a small glimpse of hope at finding his mother one day, but for now he wanted to think things through, so he continued to cry for a long time that he ended up falling off to sleep. He slumped into a foetal position subconsciously.

Naruto awoke the following day, feeling both emotionally and physically drained. It also did not help that he was feeling extremely hungry as well. With that in mind he decided to stand up and see if there was anything he could eat that was in this place. It's probably been abandoned for as long as he has been alive, but even still the place looked like it was being cleaned every day, so maybe there would be food that was somehow preserved.

Naruto walked into the hallway again before he set course for the kitchen, all while thinking about what he discovered yesterday. If the Yondaime truly was his father then that meant that he was somehow destined to be awesome. He thought about his mother, and how he needed to find her since he did not know whether or not she was dead, but for now he needed to fill his stomach, so he went into the small kitchen and opened the first cupboard he came into contact with.

Just as he had thought the Yondaime Hokage somehow had a way to preserve things, like how his cottage remained clean despite him being dead, and how there was food that was in the cupboards that was not expired. Naruto saw a cup of instant ramen, and since ramen was the only thing he could make he took it and put it on the table. He filled the kettle with water, how the place was still getting supplied with water was beyond Naruto, he just knew that he was grateful.

After the water was ready he proceeded to pour the water into the instant ramen cup, where he soon dug in after it was ready, and within a minute he was done with it. He took the cup and threw it into the bin before proceeding to explore the rest of the Yondaime's cottage estate.

Naruto walked into the bathroom and decided to use the shower, and after cleaning himself up he proceeded to give himself a quick crash course through the rest of the cottage.

There was nothing left for him to explore in the main cottage so he walked out and went into the one that was to the left. Remembering what had transpired yesterday when he tried to open the door, and how it eventually opened Naruto thought that it might be best to emulate what he had done yesterday. He took out the weapon he kept on him and used it again, cutting his palm, wincing in pain in the process, and then dropping his blood on the door handle, and just like yesterday the door opened on its own to gain him entrance inside the house.

Naruto stepped through the threshold once more, and once again he found that he could barely see, so he did the only thing he could do at that particular moment in time, and that was look for the light switch, which he found really quickly and turned on the lights to the house.

Naruto walked around the house, which he found out was not so much of a house but a dojo. He may have been an idiot in many people's mind but he was smart, even for a kid his age. He knew what a dojo was and this looked like an old school Japanese style dojo that had a door that lead into another room beyond the dojo. Naruto traversed towards that door and stopped directly in front of the door.

He slowly reached for the door handle, hoping to Kami that he did not get electrocuted. His hand crept slowly towards the door handle until he held it, while his eyes were closed due to the freight that he felt. After having held onto the door handle for a while he realised that nothing happened so he decided to open the door.

Upon opening the door Naruto was greeted by the sight of what was _the biggest_ armoury he had ever seen in his entire life. Everything in the armoury was spotlessly clean and had a shine to it. He found more of these weird weapons that were lodged on the cottage grounds inside the armoury, along with ordinary kunai and shuriken along with different looking swords of all shapes and sizes. All in all anyone that had a fetish for weapons would cum in their pants just by looking at the armoury (a bun haired girl in Konoha sneezed for no reason in particular) as Naruto saw that it housed a lot of weapons he had never ever seen before.

He continued to look through the armoury for a while, spotting things like scrolls and a whole lot more objects he had never seen before.

He eventually grew tired of walking around the armoury and decided to walk out and head towards the other cottage he had not seen yet.

Upon reaching the other cottage Naruto let a bit of his blood drop onto the door handle, again, and watched as the door opened to welcome him in. He walked into the house and it immediately lit up on its own, unlike the other two cottages that did not do this as you had to turn the lights on manually.

What Naruto saw could easily be described as the biggest library he had ever seen. He did not know about Konoha's Shinobi library, but he knew that when compared to the academy's library this one easily dwarfed it in size. It had books and scrolls all over the show and he could see that they were all categorised, even though he did not know their categories, he could just tell that they were.

Naruto walked through the library, inspecting it really slowly. Why slowly? Because he did not know how to read fast, so it took him a while to be able to make out words that were actually categories more than anything else. There was everything here from something called politics, art, strategy games, and Naruto's personal favourite, the shinobi arts.

He spent a while in the library, not only looking through books and scrolls, but also contemplating with what he should do with what he had discovered over the last thirty six hours. He knew that no one could or should know about this place. He found it through a stroke of good fortune but right now he did not know what to do with all of this. If the Yondaime was his father, then that would mean that he was the rightful owner of this place.

The fact that his blood could somehow open this place was proof of it.

He sat down and contemplated what he could do. He wanted to stay here but realised he could not because sooner or later people would come look for him, and then they would stumble upon this place, and that would be disastrous for him because he would not put it past people to try and nick the Yondaime Hokage's possessions.

He could not allow his father's possessions to be in the hands of some greedy bastard.

His father? That thought made Naruto chuckle. He was the son of the Yondaime Hokage, which thought made him ecstatic, and it filled him up with pride. He wondered if his father would know what to do if he was in this situation. Of course he would, after all he was the greatest Hokage ever. No two ways about it.

He sat there for hours until he finally made up his mind. He was going to live in Konoha, but he would come here whenever he could to train, first things first he needed to better his reading and his intellect. If there was one thing this whole experience pointed out to him was that he was a total dumbass, he still could not read fast enough, and he sucked at knowledge on general things.

He would learn whatever he could in Konoha, but he would come here and train. He wanted to be a Hokage just like his father, and there was no way he was not going to achieve that dream.

Naruto stood up and he looked for a map in the library, hopefully it could help him get out of the forest. He may not have been a good map reader, but he had seen how the older kids were taught how to read maps, and he would see them practice this skill during lunch breaks or before tests, so he ended up picking up how to read one.

Naruto eventually found a map and he looked it over. Using basic map reading skills he was able to pinpoint the exact location of the estate and then the way to and fro Konoha.

He had an idea that popped into his mind. He ran into the main cottage and found a bag in the living room. He took of at a fast pace and returned to the library, where he spent close to three hours looking for a few books to take back with him to Konoha. A big part of him wanted to look through the jutsu scroll section, but he remembered that as long as he was terminally stupid he would not be able to understand jutsu, so he chose to first develop himself mentally before he dealt with the physical aspects of being a shinobi. Though it pained him he still had to do it.

He took four books and two scrolls and put them in his bag. Beginner level books for Nin, Gen, and taijutsu along with theories on other shinobi related subjects. Nothing major in his opinion, plus he took a book that would help with his reading deficiency. All in all he had what he needed for now, so he took the map and exited the cottage estate.

He would come back in a few weeks' time to begin his real training. The world had better watch out as Uzumaki Naruto was gonna take the world by a maelstrom.

_**Two Years and Three Months Later**_

Naruto was currently running through the forest outside of Konoha at the same speed he displayed months ago when he was chased around by the village's chunin with a pair of training weights on his calf. He was panting heavily as he ran; sweat rolling down his brow as he continued his run. He had been at this for the past hour and fifty eight minutes.

"Just two more minutes." Naruto said to himself.

Naruto had changed a lot ever since coming into the forest clearing and stumbling upon Namikaze Minato's cottage.

Namikaze Minato…he had finally learned the name of the Yondaime Hokage after having done a lot of studying. He had kept his self-made promise to first get smarter before he became stronger. The results spoke for themselves.

Though he was nowhere near the level of a genius like his father, but he had managed to do the best of his ability. In the academy his grades picked up greatly, and by the time the first year ended he was in the middle of the pecking order. He had become really good at reading and writing, something he had a naturally good hand for.

He was able to finally do research on his parents, and he was sad to discover that both of his parents were deceased. He would come here during the weekends when the academy was open to look for anything that might be a potential clue, and it did not take long to find out who his parent's names were.

Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina, those were their names.

He was so happy when he found out that he screamed it to the world, but he was saddened by the fact that Kushina, his mother, had passed away on the day of the Kyuubi attack.

How did he know this? He found her name etched on to the Memorial Stone, a monument that was erected for fallen heroes.

Naruto's plan to become a shinobi had been a success. The only thing the Academy was good for was the theoretical side of the shinobi world, practical side though they sucked. They taught the Kawarimi, Henge and Bunshin no Jutsu late into the students' tenor in the academy. Naruto had already mastered two of the three Jutsu that were taught at the academy, though he had a problem with the Bunshin no Jutsu.

Naruto tried for months on end to learn the Bunshin no Jutsu, but he had come out blank every single time. He did some more research on the jutsu, and he discovered that the jutsu had a certain amount of chakra required for it, but unfortunately Naruto sucked at chakra control. He thought that by mastering a few chakra control exercises that maybe he would be able to perform the jutsu.

He did the tree walking exercise along with the much more complicated water walking exercise, but unfortunately he still ended up not being able to do the jutsu. A part of him wanted to just throw in the towel and skip the Bunshin no Jutsu, but he was not a quitter. He was Uzumaki Naruto, and Uzumaki Naruto never ever quits.

Naruto had done some more research on the subject and he discovered a few things. The chakra control exercises he was doing previously were two-fold. They not only helped you to better control your chakra, but it also helped you build it up so Naruto's chakra had increased while he did the exercises.

So he would never be able to do the Jutsu, ever. But for every problem, there was a solution, and his solution came in the form of elemental Bunshin.

In order for him to know what type of elemental Bunshin would best suit him, Naruto had to take an elemental affinity test to gauge exactly which element he was aligned with. He had gotten a piece if chakra paper from the stock that his parents had in their armoury, after he had read what its function was, and he used to determine that he had an elemental affinity for Fuuton.

Unfortunately for him though there was no Fuuton Bunshin anywhere, so he was stuck with another dilemma. He still had no Bunshin that he could create, so he just gave up doing the Bunshin no Jutsu for another date. He decided to focus on other things, and with his knowledge on which element he was aligned with he decided to search for any book that could help him learn about his element.

He eventually came across a book called _Fuuton Mastery_; when he read the book he found out that by mastering your element you could create your own Jutsu. The prospect of doing so appealed very much to Naruto so whenever he was not at the cottage, when he was back in Konoha's walls he would spend hours every day trying to master his element. He spent a good six months trying to cut a leaf with pure elemental chakra manipulation. Unfortunately he lost his patience when he could only get a small cut out of the leaf so he consulted the book once more looking for a way to speed thing s up.

He found something rather interesting in the book. Well it was not the author of the book that wrote what Naruto thought was interesting but rather it was the book's previous owner, Shimura Danzou.

Apparently Danzou would write down notes on the side whenever he found something that sped up his Fuuton manipulation or if he found n easier way to do things, and apparently Danzou had found out that there was a way to speed things up. Danzou mentioned a jutsu known as the _Kage Bunshin no Jutsu_, but did not explain much after that.

So Naruto was left to search the Jutsu all on his own but he could not find it; that is until he came across his father's journal. He used his own blood once more to open the journal and read about his father's training regimens. His father also mention the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, but unlike Danzou he mentioned the Jutsu's description and its pros and cons.

Like the fact that it takes a lot of chakra to make, hence why it was only taught to Jounin. Another thing his father explained was how the Bunshin would supply its creator with whatever memories and experiences it gained. Naruto decided to try his luck on the Jounin level Jutsu; and the results had him absolutely floored. He channelled as much chakra as he could into the jutsu and he ended up creating hundreds of clones, which was before he passed out from minor chakra exhaustion.

He did a lot of research a few days after that on the fact that he could produce an army of himself when most Jounin could not even reach five Bunshin at once and what he found out made him happy and sad all at once.

Apparently he was from a clan that were gifted with an unnatural life force and also had an insane amount of chakra. So he could attribute his army creating ability to his heritage. Looking into his heritage also made him sad because he discovered that his clan was annihilated by a coalition between Kumo, Iwa and Kiri.

He also read that his clan were destroyed because they were feared in Fuuinjutsu, so to honour his clan he decided to learn Fuuinjutsu. He found out that throughout the library Fuuinjutsu was the biggest section that his parents had stocked up on. He would attribute it to both of them being masters of the field.

With his new found Jutsu, which gave him a new training method; and a few goals in mind, Naruto set on his mission once more to get stronger.

Naruto was brought out of his musings when the stop watch he had on him rang, signalling that his two hour run with his weights on was up. He stopped and looked at his surroundings, noticing that he was surrounded by trees everywhere. He decided to turn back and head towards the cottage to freshen up.

He ran at a fast pace with his weights still on, where after a while he was soon back in the clearing that marked the entrance into the cottage.

Unlike the last time he was here, where he was greeted by the sight of his father's Hiraishin no Jutsu kunai that were scattered all over, this time around he was greeted by the sight of something else besides the kunai, it was the sight of hundreds of versions of him doing different things in different groups.

Group one was currently trying to channel pure Fuuton chakra through a boulder in hopes of cutting it in half, just as that Danzou person, the previous owner of his Fuuton Mastery book said in a side note.

Group Two was currently working on balancing the tips of their kunai on the palm of their hands. Group three were currently running through Taijutsu Katas. Group four was diligently working on Fuuinjutsu, after having long since perfected their calligraphy.

Group five was currently running through hands seals in unison before they inhaled a lot of air before they released in a large gust of wind.

The final group was practicing Kenjutsu katas with a pure black ninjato.

As soon as the clones saw him enter the clearing, they started disappearing in groups of ten, and after twenty minutes there was only one Uzumaki Naruto left in the clearing.

Naruto plopped down on to the ground in a meditative position and meditated for nearly thirty minutes, this was done so that he could sort out all of the memories his clones sent to him when they dispelled.

After his meditating session was done, he jumped to his feet and made a mad dash for the cottage. He needed to take a shower, and then eat before heading back to Konoha to keep up with appearances.

Ever since he began his training he stopped pulling pranks around the village all because he had no time do them, and as a result his social standing in the village went from being hated to just being a no body. Though it pained him that Konoha was once again ignoring him, he knew that within a few years he would be able to garner their attention once again through the deeds he would perform for them, that much he was certain of.

He walked into the main cottage, and then the bathroom and let loose a torrent of water after stepping into the shower. He was totally drained from today's training, but exhaustion was something he had gotten used to over the last few years so he did not let it bother him at all.

After he was done with taking a shower he went into his bedroom to get a change of clothes. He had turned the nursery into his own personal bedroom. It only had a few items, mostly clothes that were in a chest of drawers while he also had few other things in it like a stand for the different swords he practiced with. He only practiced with three swords at the moment, and those were katana, tanto and his personal favourite a ninjato.

Naruto changed into a pair of blue shorts and a white t-shirt that had an orange swirl emblazoned on it on the front of the t-shirt. He left his bedroom and decided to return to Konoha. He locked up the house and then he went through five hand seals before he placed his palm on the ground, and almost instantly a barrier was that acted like a dome that protected the estate while he was away. The barrier became invisible after a few seconds.

Naruto turned and decided to run into the forest, taking the same path he does every time as he made his way to Konoha. What Naruto did not see was a silhouette that was looking at him from a far out. Said silhouette had gravity defying hair and wore an ANBU uniform along with a dog porcelain mask, next to him was an individual who had on a badger porcelain mask, and they were both surrounded by four burning bodies.

"I'm glad Sandaime-sama made us watch over Naruto…lord knows that if Danzou found out about Naruto being the only person that was able to enter the estate he would no doubt ambush him, or worse use Naruto to get whatever info that Minato-sensei hauled inside there." Spoke the Dog mask wearing ANBU.

The second ANBU just sighed as he knew what his senpai said was absolutely true. The Sandaime Hokage had made them watch over Naruto after it became apparent that he would disappear from the village every weekend.

They were able to trail him during one weekend, and they found out that Naruto could somehow gain entry into the Yondaime Hokage's estate. He (the second ANBU) was confused as to how Naruto could enter the Yondaime's estate, but it was later on explained to him that Naruto was the Yondaime's son, and he felt like kicking himself as the resemblance was uncanny.

Naruto was a spitting image of the man who saved their village, and now he was well on his own path to greatness from what the ANBU saw. Naruto's mind was cunning and ever evolving. From what the ANBU had seen of Naruto's training the boy, while not really quick when it came to picking things up, had a brilliant training regime. With his continuous use of the Kage Bunshin he was able to create a very effective way to train and speed up the leaning process.

From what the ANBU had seen this kid was already at chunin level.

He still had two more years at the academy, and they were both sure that by then Naruto would be able to take on one of the weaker Jounin on his own. The Sandaime could have stopped Naruto when he first found out, but after some interesting pointers made by Kakashi, they decided to let Naruto continue his training.

Still though, they had to report to the Sandaime Hokage about them coming across Root today. This was the first time that they had come across Root and they had to make sure that the Sandaime heard of this before it was too late.

**Konoha - Twenty Minutes Later**

The two ANBU were currently standing in front of the reigning Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen. They had just finished delivering their report on what had transpired today, about them coming across four Root operatives, and having to forcefully take them out of commission on a permanent basis.

The old man did not once interject as he listened to the two ANBU give their entire report, and when they were done with it, the room was filled with complete and utter silence for about five minutes as their wizened leader contemplated everything he had heard thus far.

Finally though Hiruzen spoke, and he said, "Well this is some very troubling news really. If Danzou's Root operatives stumbled upon you then that means that he will no doubt send more to investigate their deaths, and when that happens he will no doubt find out about Naruto being able to enter his father's only remaining cottage estate. He would then either use this as means to get the council to favour him in raiding our former leader's house and "borrow" the Yondaime Hokage's jutsu so he can make Konoha stronger."

The Dog mask wearing ANBU tightened his fists at that as he knew that what the Sandaime said was absolutely true, as he would not put it past Danzou to try something so underhand just to gain his sensei's most prized jutsu. Before he could continue on his current thought trail his partner spoke up and said, "Excuse me if I am wrong Sandaime-sama, but with our scuffle with Root would it not be more prudent to just use this info as a way to oust Danzou on charges of treason, since he had been ordered to disband Root, but he did not?"

"It would be as you said, Tenzo, if this was someone else, but going up against someone as well connected as Danzou would take more than just my word as Hokage. Because of the fact that Danzou is so well connected he could use this as an opportunity to convince the rest of the council, that being my former teammates Homura and Koharu to side with him, which would make things even more harder for me, and besides I only let Danzou think he has all the cards but I know that Root still has its uses, hence why I will not order him to disband it." Replied the Hokage

"Then what are we supposed to do then?" asked the now identified Tenzo.

"For now we will do nothing but keep this to ourselves. From what you have described about your battle against Danzou's men, the moment you killed them, their bodies burst into flames, which means that Danzou has a special seal on them that protects him from information about him or Root falling into the wrong hands. So for now we will do nothing, nothing at all."

This did not please any of the men in the room, but they all knew that what they had just discussed/heard was absolutely true. Still though there was one more point that had to be addressed, and the Dog mask wearing ANBU felt he should bring it up, so he said, "What about Naruto?"

"What about him, Kakashi-senpai?" asked a slightly confused Tenzo to the now identified Kakashi.

Kakashi, sensing Tenzo's confusion decided to address it and said, "Well if, no, when Danzou finds out about Naruto's training he'll use it as an excuse to get Naruto to be trained by him, where he will use excuses like 'being trained by someone with experience allows you to learn more than training by yourself', along with a few other excuses, and we all know that if Danzou gets Naruto it would be the end of Konoha, no scratch that, it would be the end of piece in the shinobi world."

Hiruzen nodded his head at what Kakashi said as it was absolutely true. Danzou would eventually find out about Naruto's training, and he would use a few excuses, along with a few well-placed bribes to get his way with Konoha's council to vote for Naruto to be under his tutelage, and that would be the end of things here in Konoha, just as Kakashi had previously said.

Still though as a great man once said, for every problem, there is a solution, and Hiruzen just happened to have one that he was going to ask his two most trusted ANBU about.

"There would only be one way for us to salvage this situation…we would have to tell Naruto to stop his training…"

Hiruzen quickly put up his hand when he saw that both of his ANBU were about to retort to his statement and quickly added on, "…that would have been the most ideal choice, but unfortunately a scenario like that would not play out too well as Danzou would use that to his advantage where he could go behind my back and train Naruto secretly, with Naruto still being a child he could be easily goaded into doing it. But do not worry, as I have come up with another peaceful alternative."

"What is it?" asked a now curious Kakashi as to what his leader may have in mind. His leader was all about peace, so although he would be in every right to kill Danzou on charges of treason, it would not end well for Konoha as a civil war could erupt, so a peaceful alternative was a must.

"Well it's quite simple actually…we'll, and by that I mean either of you two, will have to train Naruto until he becomes a genin." The Sandaime Hokage said with a small smirk on his face. Though he could not see the faces of his ANBU as they were hid behind their mask, he could make out their shocked expressions through their body language.

"But Hokage-sama…" Tenzo said, before being interjected by Kakashi who said, "I'll do it."

Tenzo turned and looked at his senpai as if he had grown a second head. What was he thinking? He was Konoha's best ANBU operative, and yet he was willing to endanger the village just for a boy, Tenzo could not fathom it in his wildest dreams.

As if sensing what Tenzo was thinking Kakashi quickly said, "It's okay Tenzo, the ANBU division won't fall apart without me. I'm doing this so as to ensure that Konoha's jinchuriki is strong, and also to try and repay my debt to Minato-sensei, after all I haven't been there for his son."

It seemed as if Kakashi's statement had both a logical and emotional sense to it. Sure he was Konoha's most powerful ANBU operative, but he was not its foundation. Even if he were to leave the ANBU still had a lot of powerful shinobi ready to pick up the slack. And he was also right about Konoha's Jinchuriki being strong. If Naruto was weak, then that would be a huge blow to Konoha's military might. One ANBU operative for a jinchuriki – it wasn't even a contest, as a jinchuriki was one of the pillars of a shinobi village.

And his emotional attachment to Naruto through his father, the late Yondaime Hokage, would allow Kakashi to better look out for Naruto. So all in all, Kakashi being Naruto's sensei until graduation was not such a bad thing if Tenzo was truly honest with himself.

The room was filled with dead silence for a few minutes as Hiruzen seemed to be contemplating something. He had a lot of thought s cross his mind, but after a while though, he decided to voice one or two of them.

"No…Kakashi will not be Naruto-kun's sensei." Said Hiruzen

"What?!" Both ANBU blurted out at once. If Kakashi was not Naruto's sensei, then that would mean that the Hokage decided to make Tenzo Naruto sensei until graduation.

As if sensing both men's thoughts, and doubts, Hiruzen quickly said, "The reason as to why I did not choose Kakashi is simple. Kakashi is one of Konoha's best, no Konoha's best, ANBU operative, and to have him leave the ANBU to train Naruto would cripple us. Plus Danzou would use those very same reasons as to why he should train Naruto, since everyone with a pair of ears knows about Konoha's copy ninja, so if you left the ANBU for something the council would no likely deem trivial, then our plan would once again work in Danzou's favour."

"I'm sensing a _but_ in there somewhere, Hokage-sama." Said Kakashi

"Indeed there is Kakashi…and this but comes in the form of Tenzo."

"Huh?" was the only audible response both men could fathom.

"If Tenzo were to be the one to train Naruto then the council would side with us. It is no secret that the majority of Konoha is afraid of Naruto as they fear that he could use the power of the Kyuubi one day to annihilate us all. But if I were to mention Tenzo's 'special' ability then they would no doubt see this as a good opportunity, especially if he is trained by someone who is loyal to Konoha like Tenzo."

At this, Kakashi and Tenzo nodded their heads as their leader had a point with what he said.

If Kakashi had quit the ANBU just to teach Naruto, it would have caused uproar in the council chambers, but if it was Tenzo and his special 'gift' was mentioned in passing, then there would not be a problem at all. So all in all it was a victory for them and a defeat for Shimura Danzou.

"There's also another reason as to why I picked Tenzo." said the Sandaime out of the blue.

This brought both men out of their stupors, and it made them ask, or at least Tenzo did seeing as Kakashi kept quiet, "What is it, Hokage-sama?"

"Well Tenzo, as we all know you are a perfectionist, and from what I have seen of Naruto-kun's training he is progressing well, but he does not master things, he simply learns them, and ends off at that. Your job, Tenzo, would be to teach Naruto to perfect all that he knows before teaching him whatever _he_ wants. Since you are not officially his sensei, you have no right to tell what, and what not to learn, but if you deem it too dangerous for him, then you may stop him."

Tenzo nodded at this as once again what the old man said was absolutely true. Naruto trained to learn, not to master. That was why Tenzo had deemed him to be a chunin at best. But if he were to master all of the things that he knew, then he would be at low Jounin level with the things he knew already. But that was okay, if what the Sandaime said was true, then he would have two years to get Naruto to master all that he already knew and that would be a pretty long time for anyone, by then Naruto would have mastered all he knew, and also developed, or learned new things by then.

And that was not taking his special Kage Bunshin training method into consideration. All in all by the time Naruto became sixteen years old he would be one of the most powerful men in the world if he kept at his current rate of progression.

"Sandaime-sama…" said Kakashi out of the blue, "…who would be Naruto's sensei once he graduates from the academy in two years' time? Someone like him would need a truly strong sensei who could instil the right morals inside of Naruto by the time he graduates, or else he may become as emotionless as Uchiha Itachi is."

This got the three men to think some more as to who would be Naruto's sensei, as what Kakashi said was absolutely true. Uchiha Itachi may have been the most promising shinobi of this generation, as many would go so far as to say that he is the strongest member of the clan since Uchiha Madara, the clan's founder, but he was completely emotionless, and they did not need Naruto to be like that.

For the sake of both himself and for Konoha's sake, Naruto could not become emotionless.

"We will see when the time comes." said Hiruzen to the men, "For now though, we will just do what we need to in order to ensure that Naruto stays out of Danzou's reach…so now I would like for you to call Naruto for me…"

Both men nodded their heads and left with a Shunshin.

"…we have much to discuss."

**END**

**That was the end of the first chapter, if a can get ten reviews by Sunday night (good or bad, doesn't matter), then I will continue with it, if not…well you'll know what'll happen.**

**The next chapter will be where you will be able to see what Naruto has been doing in the last two years in detail. **

**I'm out.**


	2. Chapter Two: Test of Strength

**A/N:**

**Like with all great stories the main character needs a rival, so help me create one, or just give me your own creations. Remember to describe the character's look, personality, and most importantly, their abilities. The criteria they have to fill is that they have to be male (having a female rival would complicate the story since it is strictly Naru/Kuro) and they have to be at Naruto's level of a genius (which is basically the same as Itachi's, though slightly greater).**

**Anyway, enjoy… **

Chapter Two: Test of Strength

Two figures stood across each other in a forest clearing located outside of Konoha's mighty walls. The clearing was surrounded by lush greenery as the trees provided a natural camouflage for the two individuals as they prepared to go at it with one another.

The first individual had short brown hair and black, almond shaped eyes. He wore the standard Konoha-nin attire along with a Jounin flak jacket. His attire though did not have the customary Uzumaki swirl on it and the neck of his shirt was form fitting as it went up to his chin. In addition to that he had two hip pouches strapped onto his lower back and he also wore a happuri-style forehead protector that framed his face which was similar to the one worn by one of Konoha's greatest shinobi Senju Tobirama, the Nidaime Hokage. This figure also carried a standard edition Konoha ANBU katana.

The second individual was shorter than the first by a significant margin. He had ocean blue eyes along with spiky blonde hair. He also had a defining feature on him which was six whisker marks, three on each cheek, which adjourned his face. He wore a white t-shirt that had an orange Uzumaki swirl on the front of it along a pair of blue cargo shorts and a pair of blue sandals on him. He had a pouch that was strapped onto his lower back along with a ninjato that was in a black sheath.

Both figures continued to look at each other, each with Different thoughts raging in their minds. For the taller figure this was a mission he had to complete by any means necessary. The Sandaime Hokage had made this an A-rank mission, it as to simply help Naruto master all that he knew before he graduated. Naruto was an integral part of Konoha whether he knew it or not. He would one day be Konoha's flag pole; he would carry its burdens and also represent it at an international stage. If he were to fail it would be disastrous for Konoha, so as to prevent that Naruto was being trained by arguably the calmest and biggest perfectionist in all of Konoha. He could not fail this assignment by any means necessary.

The second figure was looking over at the man in front of him. Tenzo was this guy's name. He was one of Konoha's strongest shinobi, and he had been assigned by the Sandaime Hokage to teach him. Thinking about the Sandaime made Naruto think about the meeting he had with the old man a few days prior.

_**Flashback**_

**Naruto had just returned from his training session in his father cottage estate and had already made it to his apartment. He was currently lying down on his couch looking to take a quick nap, but sadly the universe did not want him to take a nap as he was interrupted by a knock on his apartment front door. **

**Naruto let out a small groan as he stood up and walked to his door. He was not a very popular guy so he wondered who would be at his front door, and what they wanted from him. Naruto reached his front door and opened it. **

**Upon doing so he was greeted by the image of two of Konoha's ANBU standing there. How did he know what the ANBU were? He had read about them when he wanted to know about Konoha's military rankings. He might not have found it appealing to be one of these guys as all they did was operate in the shadows, but he could not help but respect them. **

**The ANBU to his left had a badger mask on his face along with short brown hair, while the other wore a dog mask and he had gravity defying hair. Naruto looked at the two ANBU that stood at his apartment door and wondered what they wanted from him since there was no way the Hokage would send two ANBU operatives just to fetch him…**

"**Uzumaki-san, Hokage-sama has requested your presence." said the badger mask wearing ANBU in a relatively emotionless voice. **

**Guess he was wrong since the old man did send these two ANBU just to fetch him, huh, imagine that. **

**Naruto looked at the two ANBU with a look that begged the question, "What for?"**

**This time though it was the spiky haired ANBU who said, "Hokage-sama will answer you when you talk to him."**

**Naruto just nodded slowly and backed into his apartment before closing his apartment door in the ANBU operatives' faces. They stayed still for nearly a minute before Naruto reopened his door and walked out of it before shutting his apartment door and locking it before proceeding down the steps. **

**Naruto was followed by the two ANBU, though they chose to remain in the shadows, demonstrating why they were ANBU operatives. This just got Naruto to sigh as there was no way he would willingly stay in the shadows even if there was no need to, it just wasn't his style. **

**The walk to the Hokage's office was a relatively short and peaceful one, with the only thing Naruto found disturbing to him being that he walked past Ichiraku Ramen and the heavenly smell just filled his nostrils, but unfortunately he could not go in and have some ramen. Not because he did not have money, on the contrary Naruto had a ton of cash on him that he had found his parents estate; it was because of the fact that he did not want to be late to the Sandaime's office. **

**One of the things his father had specified in his journal was that punctuality was a must in a shinobi, and then there was a side comment made by his father where he said something akin to "Kakashi should adhere to this the most. That was the only thing I miss about the old him before Obito's death."**

**Of course Naruto did not know what that side comment meant, but he would stick to his father's guide lines like glue. **

**Naruto walked into the Sandaime Hokage's office without knocking on the door (hey, his father's journal said nothing against barging into the Hokage's office) and he was immediately greeted by the sight of the wizened Hokage of Konoha sitting behind his desk with his arms on the desk and a patient look on his face.**

**Naruto could tell that whatever was going on would not end pretty well for him, so after walking into the Sandaime's office and then closing the door to said office, Naruto stood took a seat in front of the Hokage's desk without waiting for the proper authorisation for him to do so. After sitting down Naruto looked up at the Sandaime Hokage and said in a jubilant voice, "Sup Jiji, you miss me?" **

**The Sandaime allowed a smile to grace his old features because in truth he really did miss the boy. Ever since Naruto began his training he had seen him less and less. He quickly put that train of thought away as he assumed a business-like look on his face and he said, "As true as that is, Naruto-kun, it is not the reason why I have called you here today."**

"**Oh really…" said Naruto sounding, and looking a little despondent, "…what would it be that would warrant for you to call me in today then?"**

**The Sandaime decided to not beat around the bush and he instead chose to go straight to the point, "I know about your training, Naruto-kun."**

"**What?!" said Naruto in great disbelief, "…how long have you know?"**

"**I don't know how long you have been at it, but I suspect it was around two years ago, give or take."**

**Naruto was absolutely baffled that the Hokage knew about his secret. How did he find out? He always made sure to check for anyone lurking in the shadows in case they decided to follow him. The better question was what would the Sandaime do know that he knew? Would he ask Naruto to stop just like he had feared? Would he kill him for trespassing on his father's property? Would he consider him a thief, or would he… **

"**Relax, Naruto-kun…" said the Sandaime Hokage as if he could tell what Naruto was thinking. In truth he could, as he could read Naruto's facial emotions which were all over the show, so it was easy to piece together what Naruto was thinking.**

"**Huh…" was all Naruto could say. **

"**I said relax. I pretty sure I can guess what you're thinking about."**

"**Really…" said Naruto in a disbelieving tone, "…well then what was I thinking?"**

"**You were thinking something along the lines of either me arresting you or me telling you to stop training altogether, ne."**

**Naruto just stared at the Sandaime Hokage with wide eyes as he was amazed by the old man's powers of deduction, where all he could do to signify that the old man was right was a nod of his head. After nodding though Naruto had a thought that came to mind, one that he decided to voice out, "Wait…if you aren't going to arrest me, kill me or tell me to stop-"**

"**-Kill you?" Hiruzen interjected, though he had a slightly amused tone in his voice.**

"**Never mind that, as I said, if you won't do any of the things I had previously mentioned, I need to know what is it you plan to do with me then?"**

"**Why I plan on letting you continue your training." answered Hiruzen. **

"**Why?" was the only thing Naruto could ask.**

"**Naruto-kun, I am aware that you know of your lineage." Said the Sandaime Hokage shocking Naruto once more, although that shock soon turned into a scowl as Naruto pointed a finger a Hiruzen and said, "There! If you knew who my parents were all this time then why did you lie to me, huh?"**

**Hiruzen was taken aback by Naruto's attitude, one moment he was shocked, the next he was angry. Though from what he got from the question, Naruto had every right to be angry as he had lied to the boy all these years whenever Naruto asked if he knew who his parents were.**

**Still though everything he has done for Naruto, whether it be good or bad, had its reasons behind them and he was about to address Naruto by telling him why he did what he had done in regards to keeping his heritage a secret. **

"**Naruto…" the old Hokage said, "…I know I lied to you all these years, but the truth is that if your heritage was revealed to you in private at a young age, you would have probably spread it around the village quicker than wild fire, thus garnering the attention of your father's enemies both inside and outside of the village…and that's excluding opportunists who would use you to get ahead in life."**

"**I don't care!" said Naruto a bit loudly. Regardless of what would happen he had a right to know about his family.**

"**I would not have said it to anyone, the fact that I have not done it now is proof that I would have kept my mouth shut if you told me to do so." Naruto continued. **

"**Prevention is better than cure Naruto-kun." The Sandaime said calmly.**

"**Huh…" was Naruto's response again.**

"**What I mean is that I would rather not risk you knowing of your heritage, where there is a possibility that your father's enemies will come for you, than have them not know of your existence entirely, thus ensuring your safety."**

**Naruto knew that there was no arguing with the Sandaime Hokage as he had solid reasons for doing what he did, but that did not mean Naruto had to like it, and he voiced his displeasure in a whisper as he said, "total bullshit."**

**With that said the argument had pretty much died out, so The Sandaime decided to move on with their impromptu meeting where he said, "As I said before our little…uh, side argument, I am fully aware that you know of your heritage, and originally I had planned for you to be taught by the academy like any regular shinobi, though it recently came to my attention that you were being sabotaged at the academy, education wise."**

"**What the?! I was being sabotaged?" asked Naruto in a disbelieving tone.**

"**Unfortunately yes, yes you were. I read a few reports done by my ANBU on your training, and apparently you are very smart, but your academy grades don't show that now, do they" **

**Naruto just nodded his head at that, thus prompting Hiruzen to continue and he said, "That got me to ponder on how someone who can perform a high-level jutsu like the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu be an average student, and apparently you study a lot..." Naruto nodded his head again, "…and yet you are only an average student, which is something I find hard to believe. So I decided to investigate this irregularity and it was brought to my attention you were being sabotaged. I have already apprehended the guilty parties and they are already in prison, facing some tough charges."**

**Naruto nodded again, showing that he understood, but there was one question that gnawed at him from the back of his mind, "Why was I being sabotaged?"**

**Sarutobi considered this for a second, he could not tell Naruto the truth, it would only cause him to go into a state of depression, though he also could not lie to him since the truth had miraculous ways of coming out, so there was only one thing he could do right now…stall, "Naruto-kun, I cannot tell you right now as you are too young to understand, but I will tell you this, when you become a genin I will tell you why, deal?"**

**Naruto looked at the old man and he could tell that the man was stalling for more time, whatever it was that somehow involved him, he knew that it was truly bad if the Sandaime was using delay tactics to postpone telling him the truth. It angered Naruto slightly that the old man was not being straight with him, but he knew that he would have to play along if he wanted to get the Sandaime to tell him, so in the end Naruto reluctantly nodded his head.**

"**Good…" the Sandaime Hokage said, "…although there is something else I wanted to say to you. Now continuing from my original point I said that I knew that you knew about who you truly are, and because of that you will one day be the face of this village, and add to the fact that you seem to be truly keen to learn the shinobi arts, then who am I to stop you, so I will help you."**

"**What?" replied Naruto disbelievingly. **

"**I will help you…or at least one of my shinobi will. His name is Tenzo (A/N: I chose to keep the name Tenzo instead of Yamato simply because it was Tsunade who had thought of that code name, and the Sandaime was already dead, so would he know of the name Yamato), and he will help you with your training."**

"**Really?" Naruto asked disbelievingly, "Wait, what's the catch?"**

"**What do you mean?" said an utterly confused Sarutobi Hiruzen. **

"**What' .catch?" said Naruto once more, this time at a slower pace. **

**Hiruzen thought about Naruto's question for a few minutes, and although he did not understand it, he would provide Naruto with the answers if he thought he could, "Well, I may not understand your question, Naruto-kun, but I want you to know that there is no ulterior motive behind this. You want to be a strong shinobi one day, and you seem to be dedicated to your training, so why not help you along the way, because as I said, you will be the face of this village one day."**

**Naruto looked at the old man in front of him, and although he did not fully trust the man anymore he knew that the man spoke the truth most of the time, whether this was one such time or not Naruto did not know, all he did know was that for now he would play along with Hiruzen Sarutobi.**

**Naruto nodded his head once more as the Hokage looked him over. The Hokage could tell he had lost a great deal of trust in Naruto, but that did not matter much because in the long run Naruto would thank him for it. **

"**Anything else, Jiji?" Naruto asked. **

"**Nothing else, Naruto-kun…oh, you're meeting your sensei at a few days' time in the clearing you train at."**

**Naruto nodded his head at that before standing up and proceeding out the door, shutting it behind him as he left the Hokage's office.**

_**Flashback End**_

Naruto did not like that meeting well enough as it just showed that the man he thought of a grandfather figure would actually lie to him. Still though, it did not matter right now as Naruto had a new task to accomplish. Standing in front of him was a Konoha Jounin that was assigned to him. Tenzo had stated that he wanted to test what Naruto was capable of, and by Kami he was about to show him what he could do.

The two shinobi, well more like one shinobi and one would-be shinobi, had been standing in their respective fight stances for a while now, neither of them moving an inch. For Tenzo this was a way for him to test Naruto's patience, while for Naruto it was him following his father's words that were in his journal…_a shinobi must always be calm, inside and outside of battle, no matter the situation you are faced with. _Those were the words that he was following right now, remaining calm in whatever situation he found himself in.

Tenzo decided that they had waited long enough, so he dug into one of his pouches and launched a volley of shuriken towards Naruto at fast speeds. Naruto was no slouch in the speed category, being a naturally fast person, and also having trained his speed for the last two years straight, he quickly took out a kunai and used it to deflect the shuriken, before he threw the kunai towards Tenzo.

Tenzo simply side stepped the kunai that was aimed at his midriff, but that provided Naruto with an ample amount of time to come in and try to engage Tenzo in taijutsu. Naruto was no idiot, he knew he did not stand a hair's breadth of a chance against Tenzo in any category of the shinobi arts that they both knew, but this was a test for him to see just how strong was he in these categories, that was why he decided to go to Tenzo to test the Shinobi rules: Number one – Taijutsu.

Almost immediately Naruto was in Tenzo's face as he launched a straight punch at the man's face. Tenzo simply caught the punch before twisting and turning Naruto as he launched him over his shoulder, looking to slam him into the ground back first, although Naruto countered at the last second as he landed in a crouch and he lashed out with a reverse sweeping kick that Tenzo was able to dodge with ease by simply jumping backwards while Naruto quickly stood up and rushed at him once more, jumping into the air and looking to kick Tenzo in his face, but the man dodged the kick by crouching down slightly, and as soon as the kick went past his head, Tenzo quickly rose up and grabbed Naruto while he was in mid-air and proceeded to throw him across the clearing, only for Naruto to back flip and regain his bearings as he touched the ground feet first.

Naruto ran towards Tenzo once more where he performed a series of punches and kicks that the Jounin simply blocked or parried with ease before he lashed out with a right hook to Naruto's face, but was surprised when Naruto was able to quickly dodge the attack by crouching, before he came up with a rising uppercut that missed Tenzo's chin by a hair's breadth as it sailed past him, before Tenzo grabbed the offending fist with his right hand, using it to pull Naruto in before impaling Naruto with an elbow to the stomach that made saliva fly out of Naruto's mouth, before Tenzo raised Naruto into the air using the arm he had grabbed before when he elbowed him in the stomach, before he gave Naruto a roundhouse kick to the face that sent him flying, and later on tumbling across the forest clearing, all while his tumbling body picked up some dust.

Tenzo stared at Naruto's slowly rising form while going through the fight in his head, going through what Naruto has been doing so far. The kunai that Naruto threw at him was used as a distraction so he (Naruto) could get in close. Excellent use of the basics so far; Taijutsu looked like it needed a lot of improvement upon his part. Naruto had the speed, but he lacked physical strength, something that needed a lot of improving. His reflexes though were something else entirely, Naruto was able to deflect the shuriken he threw earlier on with ease, and then there was the moment that Naruto was able to reverse being thrown over onto his back and ended up performing a backwards sweep at him (Tenzo).

Naruto's reflexes were further tested when Naruto was able to land on his after being swung across the clearing, and then he was able to dodge a punch that should have landed as if it was all second nature. Truly Uzumaki Naruto was a prodigy by no stretch of the imagination.

Naruto was also able to keep his cool despite being man handled by Tenzo, showing he was a calm person when need be.

Naruto looked at the man standing across him with no emotion etched on his face; this guy was strong, really strong. Naruto could tell that he was holding back greatly so as to test him properly. Taijutsu was a bust so now he would move onto Shinobi Rule number two – Ninjutsu.

With that said Naruto quickly took out a handful of shuriken before proceeding to throw them and he went through a few hand seals before crying out, "Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu) and almost immediately Naruto's shuriken that were on a crash course with Tenzo multiplied into nearly triple the original amount. Tenzo saw the shuriken heading his way and said, "Ninjutsu, huh?"

He went through a string of hand seals before he slammed his hands onto the ground before crying out, "Doton: Doryuuheki (Earth Style: Earth wall)"

Almost immediately a stone slab rose from the ground in front of Tenzo, protecting him from the shuriken that impaled the wall made of earth.

Before Tenzo could even bring the wall down, he sensed something, and looked up just in time to see Naruto jump down from the top of the wall, with his sword drawn, which was a pure black Ninjato, and he cried out, "Shinobi rule number five: Bukijutsu (Weapon technique)" as he made a downward slash cutting Tenzo in half, only for him to turn into mud and dissolve into nothing but a mud puddle.

Naruto landed on the ground and quickly turned around while slicing through the air with his ninjato, only for it to meet with Tenzo's katana, thus creating an audible clang that was heard throughout the clearing. Tenzo used his strength to push Naruto backwards onto the Earth Wall, which was quiet easy considering their size difference, where Naruto proceeded to smash into the wall back first causing him to be a bit delirious, before getting punched so hard by Tenzo that he actually broke through the wall, although it was already weak from having a lack of chakra being supplied to it.

Naruto crashed onto the forest clearing, tumbling for a second or two before he stopped. Naruto slowly picked himself up off the ground as he analysed Tenzo. Despite the advancements he had made in speed, Naruto knew that he had no way of outstripping a guy like Tenzo. The guy was faster, smarter, stronger, and more experienced than he was. Attacking Tenzo head on like he had been doing was not ideal. Not ideal in the least bit.

Naruto decided to change tactics once more, he so wanted to be able to use Shinobi Rule number three, but unfortunately genjutsu and him were two parallel lines. So he chose to go for something he had been training himself in a lot lately, stealth. With that idea in mind Naruto quickly dropped a smoke bomb onto the forest grounds before his form was completely enveloped by smoke, thus obscuring Tenzo's view of him.

When the smoke cleared Naruto was gone, no trace left in his wake as he disappeared into the shadows that were the surrounding trees. All Tenzo did when this strange anomaly happened was raise his right eyebrow. He simply stood still and watched for any movements that would arise from the shadows, and almost immediately it did when Naruto flew down from above on the seemingly unsuspecting Tenzo as he tried to slice him in half, only for Tenzo to stick his left hand, which was free, into one of his pouches and he pulled out a kunai that he raised just in time for him to block the overhead slash, before seemingly using his right hand to reverse slash at nothing but air, although that air soon became a sword as Tenzo's katana clashed with another Naruto who had tried to ambush him. All of this happened within the space of a second.

Tenzo released his kunai, thus making the Naruto that was overhead lose his balance, while he (Tenzo) did a double kick to both Naruto's, but unfortunately they both exploded in puffs of white smoke that did not last long revealing them to be Kage Bunshin. Almost immediately after his feet touched the ground, a pair of small hands came up from underground and grabbed Tenzo's ankles, and before the man could even move a muscle a noise he had never heard before sounded above him, thus prompting him to look up in time to see the biggest shock of his life.

There were two Naruto's descending upon him; one had his hand pulled backwards while the other simply moved his hands around the first Naruto's hand that at first had nothing, but seconds later it had a glowing blue orb that was swirling on the inside as both Naruto's descended upon Tenzo. Tenzo knew what that jutsu was; he heard so much about the Jutsu's power that it almost frightened him. It certainly frightened every Iwa shinobi that was alive today. It was one of the Jutsu that had won them the Third Shinobi War, the Yondaime Hokage's _Rasengan_.

Tenzo was petrified for a split second as the two Naruto's descended upon him before regaining himself just as both Naruto's were upon him, before the one in front who had his hand held back brought it forward, and with a cry of, "Rasengan" as he slammed the Jutsu into Tenzo.

The jutsu started to grind Tenzo; that was until the Tenzo before Naruto disappeared in a small cloud of white smoke quickly being replaced by a log, which got grinded out by the Rasengan's first damaging effect before it exploded, destroying the log as well as it became nothing but smithereens.

Both Naruto's landed on the ground, but before they could even react, Tenzo came out of nowhere and kicked them both hard, dispelling one of them while the other remained as he flew through the clearing, before once again tumbling and picking up a small dust cloud before he came to a stop. Naruto slowly got up, ninjato in hand, and glared at Tenzo. The guy had dodged one of his best moves by a hair's breadth; there went his strongest jutsu out the window.

Tenzo looked at the blonde genin in front of him with interest. He thought he had seen all Naruto could do, but it turns out Naruto had something like this up his sleeve. Naruto had trained out in the open, thus allowing them to get a view of everything that Naruto could do, so he came into this battle knowing exactly all of the things that Naruto could do. He knew how to use a sword without cutting himself, he was really fast for someone his age, and he had an affinity for Fuuton Jutsu.

The jutsu that Tenzo had seen Naruto practice were the Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Style: Great Breakthrough) along with the Fuuton: Repuushou (Wind Style: Gale Palm), but to see him be able to perform one of the Yondaime Hokage's greatest jutsu was something that he thought inconceivable for an eight year old to do. When had Naruto practiced the rasengan? That was a question he would ask another time because right now Naruto was on the attack once again.

Naruto had been picking himself up off the ground slowly as a means for him to formulate a strategy. Tenzo was on the defensive, just waiting to see what he could do. With the rasengan now a no go area as Tenzo knew about it Naruto had one more move that he could make, and that's what he was going to do now.

Naruto put his hands together forming a seal that looked like a cross before he intoned, "Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Mass Shadow Clone Jutsu)" and almost instantly the clearing was filled with fifty different copies of himself.

Normally someone would have been slightly put off from facing such large numbers, but Tenzo was a calm person by nature, and add to the fact that he had seen Naruto produce even more that this amount of clones did nothing to make him feel any bit of unease. He came into this battle knowing fully well that Naruto could create an army of himself, though significantly weaker than he was, they were still good enough to help in a fight.

The Naruto army quickly spread around the clearing, hoping to overwhelm Tenzo into submission with their numbers. As if on some silent signal ten of the clones attacked Tenzo from different sides, all of them drawing their blades back as they looked poised to tear Tenzo a new one.

The clones rushed in on Tenzo, looking to overwhelm him, but he just put his hands on the ground and cried out, "Doton: Doryuu Taiga (Earth Style: Earth Flow River)" and almost instantly the ground in front of Tenzo turned into a small mud river that was able to rush out at great speeds and intercept, and eliminate three Naruto Bunshins; before Tenzo lifted his hands and went through a string of hand seals before he slammed his hands onto the ground and cried out, "Doton: Chidokaku (Earth Style: Mobile Core)".

The earth beneath Tenzo was immediately lifted into the air, where a giant four corner stone slab of earth, with Tenzo on top of it rose out of the ground. Just like the jutsu's name stated, it was like Tenzo was literally moving a piece of the core. Once his stone podium stopped moving, Tenzo went through a string of hand seals, looking to capitalise on the Naruto clones moment of confusion and he attack them at once. He slammed his hands on the piece of Earth that he was standing on that had risen towards the sky and he called out his Jutsu, "Mokuton: Mokusupaiku no Jutsu (Wood Style: Wooden Spikes Jutsu)"

Around Tenzo's mobile earth core wooden spikes sprung from the ground, impaling and dispersing the Naruto Kage Bunshin with ease.

When Tenzo ended his Jutsu he looked up just in time to see a Naruto clone come from nowhere with his sword poised to cleave him in half, only for Tenzo to jump of the mobile core, but when Tenzo was in mid-air he saw the Naruto that attacked him smirk. A smirk that would have sent a chill down Tenzo's spine had he not been in the middle of a fight already, but it did prompt him to turn around and look just in time to see the remaining thirty nine Naruto's finish a string of hand seals at the same time before they all inhaled deeply and said, "Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Style: Great Breakthrough)".

The Fuuton: Daitoppa was a powerful-ish jutsu on its own, as it can create enough wind to uproot a tree or two when used by a seriously powerful Fuuton jutsu user, but when you have thirty nine people using the jutsu from a single point, well let's just say that no one would want to be in Tenzo's position right now. The Jutsu barrelled towards Tenzo at extremely high speed and it hit him dead centre whilst he was in mid-air. Tenzo was blown back by the severe power of the jutsu, where he slammed back first into the piece of the earth's core that he had moved all on his own.

Normally that would have been where things ended with the jutsu but unfortunately that was not the case today as the jutsu blew against Tenzo and his earth core with so much force that the core crumbled within seconds. Tenzo felt like his skin was being pulled off by the gale force winds, so in a last ditch effort to save himself he simply activated one of the Mokuton's support abilities which allowed him to move right into the middle of his earth core, as if he were a ghost moving through solid walls. Once inside the Chidokaku Tenzo manoeuvred himself underground just in time to avoid his jutsu collapsing on him.

On the outside the scene that played in front of all the Naruto's had them all widen their eyes in awe at the sheer power that his impromptu jutsu caused. After his jutsu had destroyed the Chidokaku it went on to uproot dozens upon dozens of trees that surrounded the clearing from a northern position. It created a foot path that would be almost a mile long, that's how much destruction Naruto's jutsu caused.

As the dust settled after Naruto had cancelled his jutsu he was given birth to a sight that made him whistle. Unfortunately his whistling seemed to have been a signal for his clones that were seemingly on their last legs to pop out of existence. Naruto could not blame them; he was winded, so they would naturally be in a worse position than him, given their weakened states.

Naruto just served the damage his jutsu had wrought. It looked like the type of damage an S-rank jutsu could do. Thinking about ranks made him think about the shinobi he was supposed to be fighting with. Was the guy dead or was he just stalling wherever he was if he was alive? Naruto certainly hoped it was not option one seeing as there was no way he would be able to explain to the Sandaime Hokage that he just killed one of his shinobi.

Before Naruto could continue thinking though, he felt something grab and wrap itself around his skin in a python tight grip and drag him off his feet, pulling him backwards towards something before he came to a complete stop a few seconds later. When he looked down at what had grabbed him he saw that there were special wooden bindings that had snaked their way around him, and they were the ones that pulled him back.

"Wood?" Naruto asked perplexedly already knowing who it belonged to.

Almost immediately Naruto head a sound that sounded like wood being snapped before he heard footsteps behind him, prompting him to turn around and get a look at a slightly bleeding Tenzo (bleeding at his head) who had what looked like wooden splinters coming from his arm before they fixed themselves and became a normal arm. What the heck was that?

"That was my Mokuton: Mokusatsu Shibari no Jutsu (Wood Style: Wood Binding Jutsu)…" Tenzo said before brandishing a kunai and holding it to Naruto's throat and said, "…and you lose."

If Tenzo were honest with himself he would rank Naruto at a high genin to low chunin level shinobi, not the solid chunin he had previously thought Naruto was. Sure the kid had some impressive moves, but having something at your disposal doesn't always mean you can use it properly. Naruto was a surprising person; the rasengan and the final jutsu he pulled were something he had not seen before up until today. The boy needed to have his potential moulded correctly, and he (Tenzo) felt that he was the right man for the job.

**Hokage Tower**

In a secret room inside the Hokage tower that sat four people, but these four weren't your ordinary citizens or shinobi of Konoha. No, they were something else entire. They were arguably four of the oldest people in the village, they were Konoha's council. The council was made up of the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, along with his two advisers and former teammates, Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane, and the former ANBU captain of Konoha, Shimura Danzou. These four made up Konoha's council.

They had been sitting there and discussing the goings on of the village for nearly an hour now, most of the discussion was held between the Hokage and his advisers, the former ANBU captain however chose not to do or say anything throughout the meeting so far. This action was of course regarded as a normal one for him, as Danzou only spoke on subjects he considered important.

After having talked for nearly an hour the meeting had finally drawn to a close.

"Well is there anything else anyone would like to add before we leave?" asked Koharu.

"Actually, there is…" replied Danzou.

Hiruzen had to supress a groan, he had been counting his lucky stars that Danzou did not mention anything simply because he was tired of talking, but unfortunately his lucky stars decided to betray him as Danzou decided to speak up on a subject he knew would come around eventually. Hiruzen Sarutobi was no fool, he knew that Danzou would find out about Naruto's training, and he would mention it to the advisers. He just hoped that the plans he came up with would be enough to deter Danzou.

"It has come to my attention that there has been someone who has been able to break into the Yondaime Hokage's only remaining cottage estate that survived the Kyuubi's wrath, situated just outside of Konoha." Danzou said in a monotone voice.

"What?" the elders said at the same time; if someone was able to break into the Yondaime Hokage's house, then that would mean that they would have claimed possession to some of the most powerful Fuuinjutsu in the world, especially the Hiraishin no Jutsu (Flying Thunder-God Technique). A jutsu of that calibre in enemy hands was not something the elders relished, not one bit.

As if sensing their unease, Danzou continued to drabble on in his monotonous voice, "Relax, the person that broke into the Yondaime's house was not of another village. The person is from Konoha."

"What? Who is it?" asked Koharu frantically.

"The Kyuubi's Jinchuriki." Danzou said.

"What?" This time it was Homura who blurted out.

"Yes, the Kyuubi Jinchuriki was the one who broke into the estate. I don't know when he did it, but from what I suspect he has been there for many years, as he has used some of the things the Yondaime Hokage had to train himself in the shinobi arts, probably to better himself." Danzou said, once more in monotone.

"What? He's been using the Yondaime Hokage's knowledge to better himself?" asked Koharu.

"Yes, although he is nowhere nearly strong I can assure you that if he is left to his own devices he will discover things that will make it difficult for him to be controlled, thus turning him into a threat to Konoha, where he would need to be exterminated."

Hiruzen balled his fists slightly at Danzou's proclamation, but schooled his features and remained cool on the outside. He had to relax since he already had a way to deal with this.

"What else do you know, Danzou?" asked Koharu.

"I don't know much about what he has discovered and what he has not, but what I do know is that the Kyuubi's Jinchuriki will need to be cultivated properly or else he will become a problem."

"Well that is something I agree with you on." said Koharu.

"As do I." said Homura.

"Well then, I am sure Hiruzen will agree with me when I say that I would like to train the boy so that he will not be a loose cannon that could end up becoming a threat. I would have suggested a Konoha shinobi, but then again Konoha would be losing a shinobi to do something that someone on the reserve shinobi list could do, and who better than me."

"Tenzo." said the Sandaime Hokage as if he were replying to Danzou's statement.

Almost immediately the elders' eyes widened at the Sandaime Hokage's proclamation. They all knew who Tenzo was. He was the only survivor of an experiment carried out by Orochimaru the treacherous Sanin. The experiment involved Orochimaru bonding the Shodaime Hokage's DNA with sixty potential test subjects, and Tenzo was the only one who survived. The end result was Tenzo gaining the Mokuton Kekkei Genkai of the Shodaime Hokage, although his version was shoddy when compared to Senju Hashirama's.

The man was part of Konoha's ANBU, and now he was being chosen by Hiruzen to mentor the Kyuubi Jinchuriki. The elders did not particularly like the Kyuubi Jinchuriki as all they saw him as was a weapon that Konoha needed to be strong, and they would have made him strong years before had it not been for Hiruzen stopping them.

"I have known about Naruto-kun's training for many years. He knows about his heritage, about how his father was the Yondaime Hokage and his mother being a member of the Uzumaki clan. What he does not know of is the fact that he has the Kyuubi sealed within him, and it will stay that way until he graduates." said Hiruzen.

"Why did you not tell us about this, Hiruzen? If the boy has been able to enter Minato's house for ages we could have gained some valuable jutsu that Minato has, not forgetting the rasen-" Koharu did not get to finish her statement as she was blasted with powerful killing intent by her former teammate for the first time in her life. She knew how powerful Hiruzen was, she had just forgot about it. Something like killing intent would never scare her, but somehow Hiruzen's killing intent made her very afraid. It just served to prove why he was Hokage.

"First of all, Koharu, I did not have to tell you anything because I am the Hokage, not some love sick puppy that needs a master, you would do well to remember that, old friend or not. Second I thought it best that the knowledge about Naruto being able to enter Minato's cottage be kept in a small circle. Minato had many enemies, and I know for a fact that if anyone outside the village found out his enemies, along with some new ones, would be at our door step simply because we are harbouring the Yondaime Hokage's son, someone who could be a threat to them if given enough time to grow into a powerful shinobi.

Who I choose to teach Naruto is none of your business, I am the Hokage and my word is law. Now if you will excuse me I have had enough talking for one day, I would like to return home."

With that said Hiruzen got up and left the room in a Shunshin of leaves. The elders that remained inside the room were quiet for a while, before Homura spoke up and said, "What now, Danzou?"

Danzou had a calm look on his face as he thought about what to do next; he almost had the Kyuubi Jinchuriki, only for him to slip in between his fingers again, though in all honesty he should have expected that from Hiruzen, he should have known that his rival had some sort of contingency plan. It did not matter though now, all that did matter was what he would do next. What would he do next? He had to ponder on this for a while. Since he had no clear plan on his next course of action Danzou just said, "Let Hiruzen train the boy, at least this way he won't be completely useless to us whether or not he can use the power of the Kyuubi. He would have something to rely on."

With that said Danzou simply stood up and walked around the table they were seated at, all the while his walking stick was making soft thuds on the ground, as he proceeded to leave the room. The elders just looked at his retreating form with their own thoughts in their minds.

**Forest Clearing – Namikaze Minato's House**

Sitting outside of the cottage located in the forests that surround Konoha were Uzumaki Naruto and Tenzo. They were currently having a discussion about what would happen to Naruto over the next few years.

"Naruto-kun, you need to understand that you have very powerful lineage, and when the truth comes out about who you are there will be a lot of people after you. So to avoid a catastrophe that could lead to a potential war I have been assigned to train you for the next two years. You will continue to attend the academy as usual, but you will also train with me. Am I understood?"

Naruto just nodded his head at that.

"Good, now any questions?"

"Yeah I got one, how do you plan on training me?"

"Simple, but before I get to that I first need to tell you about the purpose of today's spar between you and I…"

Before Tenzo could continue though he was cut off by Naruto who said, "It was so you could see what I was good at and what I lacked in, right?"

Tenzo nodded his head and said, "Well not precisely that, as I just wanted to see how you can use what you have, but yeah, you got it."

Naruto smiled at that for a second before he dropped the smile as a thought came to his mind, "Well, what do you think of my performance?"

In all honesty Tenzo thought Naruto did excellently for someone with next to no combat experience outside of training with his clones, where he even went as far as to give him a head injury, but then again he was holding back a lot. He could not afford to tell Naruto that right now he could give any of the academy's instructors a good ass kick simply because he did not want Naruto to think that he was beyond the Academy. Naruto still needed the academy whether he knew it or not. One of the village's core principles is teamwork, and that can only be achieved properly through the formation of bonds, and Naruto could only do that at the academy, especially considering his status outside of the academy. Tenzo needed to lie to Naruto so as not to afford him gaining a big head.

"Honestly Naruto you're a solid beginner genin to me…" okay, not really the best he could come up with, but it was better than the alternative of telling him the truth.

"…but don't worry, when I'm through teaching you, you will have done more than just fix what you lack. I will teach you to perfect what you learn because that would mean the difference in a battle, how well you know a jutsu."

Naruto looked at Tenzo confused, not really understanding what Tenzo meant, so he quickly said, "What do you mean?"

Tenzo shook his head slightly, with how smart and attentive Naruto has been so far during their fight and their conversation he kind of forgot that Naruto was still technical an eight year old Academy student.

"What I mean is this; if you are able to master a jutsu you would know how it works, inside and out, so you would know when best to use it, and when not to use it. You would know of its strengths and weaknesses, thus you would know what to do if you ever came across the jutsu in battle where you face a foe that can use it. Mastery of a jutsu would also allow you to reduce the amount of hand seals you use when casting the jutsu, thus allowing you to be able to shorten the amount of time it would take for you to perform it. In a battle that split second advantage you could get can get by being able to prepare a jutsu faster can mean the difference between life and death. Now do you understand?"

Naruto nodded his head in understanding. Tenzo made some valid points about what would happen one day when he was involved in a battle with an opponent of equal or greater standards than his. If he could perform jutsu flawlessly then he could be able to win.

Naruto did not know it but this day served as the day he stopped believing that in order for him to become Hokage he had to learn a ton of jutsu. A master of a few jutsu could defeat a user of a ton of jutsu that did not have mastery over his/her jutsu.

Naruto looked at Tenzo and said in an enthusiastic voice, "Are we beginning with the training right now, and if so what will we star with?"

Tenzo laughed out loud for a few seconds as he thought about Naruto's eagerness. The kid was every bit of a stamina junky as he had perceived him to be. The kid was an endless stream of energy. He had just gotten his ass handed to him by a Jounin, and yet here he was trying to know if there were going to start right now, and if so, what would they start with. Honestly the kid just made him laugh, his enthusiasm was contagious.

"No, Naruto-kun…" Tenzo said, "We will not begin today. Let's rest up for today, and then we will meet up at the clearing we fought at tomorrow so as to begin the training."

Naruto happily nodded his head at the man's words. They stayed and chatted for a few more minutes before Tenzo left in a Shunshin of smoke, while Naruto simply walked into his parents' house, thinking about how awesome it would be if he knew that jutsu.

**END**

**I'm done with this chapter, usually I write out my chapters to be 10 000 words minimum but this was essentially a filler chapter of sorts, the real story will begin in the next chapter.**

**You as my readers are free to give me ideas as to how I continue with the story. **

**In case you did not read the top A/N, then I will say it again; Naruto needs a rival, help me with finding one, and just write it up as a review if you must or you can PM me. Create your own character if you must.**

**Please review, Flame me at your own risk (seriously, don't) and if you have any complaints, please address them now before I go too far with the story.**

**If you still have not figured out Naruto's age yet he is eight right now, and he will graduate at the age of ten, meaning it won't follow canon for a while (two years in the story, which means no Sasuke Uchiha)**

**I'm out. **

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	3. Chapter Three: Friends and Family

**A/N: **

**I'm truly sorry for the long delay in updating my story, but I had family issues to resolve along with some technical difficulties. **

**Anyway here's chapter three.**

**Enjoy**

Chapter Three: Friends and Family

Two figures stood across each other in a clearing located outside of Konoha's walls. These two figures had been doing this for the past two and a half years now. They would train together, and then they would fight it out just to see who was better than whom. The first figure was a boy who had naturally bright blonde, spiky hair, deep blue eyes and his most astounding feature was the whisker birth marks he had on his face. He was wearing a black muscle tight t-shirt that had a swirl pattern plastered on his chest, along with a pair of dark blue pants that reached down to his ankles and over the black t-shirt he wore a white hoodie that had two blue stripes going down the length of his arms. His look was completed with a pair of blue shinobi sandals. He carried a pouch on his lower back and he also had a black sheathed chokuto stuck onto his back by pure chakra.

This boy's name was Uzumaki Naruto, and he was ten years old.

The second figure was also a boy, although unlike the first boy who had rough, spiky sunshine yellow hair, he had soft, neatly kept black hair that had three bangs, two that framed the sides of his face and one that fell in between his eye brows. He also had abyss like deep onyx eyes and he had a calm look plastered on his face. He was wearing a pure black loose t-shirt that had a red and white fan plastered on the back of the t-shirt, along with black shinobi pants and a black hoodie on top of his t-shirt that also had the same design etched onto his t-shirt. He carried a pouch on his lower back just like Naruto, and he also had a black sword on his back, though his was a Katana more than anything else, and it was strapped onto his back unlike with Naruto who had his stuck to it by the use of chakra.

This boy's name was Uchiha Kirito, and he was twelve years old.

The two boys looked at each other for a pretty long time, each looking to exploit a fault in their opponent's battle stance that they, not-so-surprisingly to either of them, could not find. Naruto was standing in a fighting stance that was created by the Yondaime Hokage; it was his signature Taijutsu stance. Both of his fists were raised towards his face, while his body was facing Kirito in a sideways manner, as if he were some predator looking to pounce on an unsuspecting victim. This Taijutsu form was made for those with lots of speed, and Naruto had that by the shit load.

Kirito stood in the traditional Uchiha Interceptor Fist, a Taijutsu form made for Uchiha, but more specifically Sharingan wielding Uchiha. Kirito looked at Naruto with a calm expression etched on his face. He and Naruto had been friends since the second year of the academy, and although they did not hit it off the bat like most would, they still managed to become friends towards the end of the second year.

Kirito being an Uchiha loved a challenge, or to be more specific, a challenging opponent. Naruto was more than just a challenge in his book, Naruto was a worthy rival. At first Naruto seemed like an idiot, always flapping his mouth, spewing garbage about him being Hokage one day. Naruto was someone Kirito's parents had told him to stay away from, and being the good son that he was Kirito obliged. He did as his parents had said and he stayed away from Naruto. Naruto had been perceived as an idiot by the class for most of the first year. Though that soon changed towards the end of the year when Naruto managed to pass the final exam at the middle of the pecking order.

In the second year Kirito really got to see Naruto's improvement, as from the get go Naruto shot up to the top two spot, giving him (Kirito) who was number one a challenge he never expected. Naruto's improvement spurred Kirito to improve himself further than before. Kirito was smart, and he got things down easily, but because of the fact that no one challenged him before he became lazy, but once Naruto showed his true colours, so to speak, he felt a deep desire within himself to make himself better. His Uchiha blood overpowered his laziness and made him work harder than before.

For the duration of that year, the grades at the academy year two class always had Naruto and Kirito swapping the number one and number two spots. They became rivals during that year, and when the tragedy of the Uchiha massacre struck, Naruto was able to get Kirito to officially become his friend. The Uchiha massacre had two survivors, one was the younger brother of the person who caused said massacre, Uchiha Sasuke, and the other being Uchiha Kirito. Kirito was sure that he would have died that night had it not been for what had happened during the day. It was by accident that he had survived, he was sure of that. Uchiha Itachi had slaughtered his entire clan, his own parents included, but left Sasuke alive on a whim, and Kirito simply survived because of the fact that he had gone to a special training area located outside the village that his friend, Naruto, went to.

Naruto had taken Kirito to his special training area so that he could have someone to test himself against, and add a new training partner. Kirito had accepted when Naruto hit him with the proposal during class, and when the bell that signalled for the end of the school day rang, they bolted it to the training area. They trained there for hours on end, both enjoying each other's company, and also enjoying training together. It was so nice for the both of them that they barely registered the time until it was too late. Realising that they could not go back to Konoha due to its gigantic gates being closed due to it being night time, they decided to head to the cottage that was once owned by the Yondaime Hokage. Naruto had told him during the first few minutes of their training session that day about who he really was, and that the cottage they trained in front of was the Yondaime Hokage's.

Of course Naruto also made Kirito swear to secrecy, which Kirito did, before they continued to train. After having spent the night in the cottage, they then headed back to Konoha during the morning. Upon entering the village though, they could both tell that something was wrong due to the atmosphere around the village, and it did not take long for them to find out when Naruto and Kirito were suddenly surrounded by the Sandaime's ANBU before being "accompanied" by said ANBU to the Hokage's office. Once in the office the Sandaime told them, or more specifically Kirito, the truth about what had happened during the previous night, and how only Kirito and Itachi's younger brother were the only survivors. The Sandaime could have had Naruto removed from the room while he delivered the news to Kirito, but he chose not to since he believed that Kirito would need his best friend's shoulder to cry on.

Kirito did not cry when he was told about what had happened, instead he just told Naruto to accompany him to his home. Upon entering said home though, Kirito finally broke down when he saw his parents being whisked away in body bags by the ANBU. He cried so hard that Naruto was forced to knock him out cold by chopping the back of his neck. When Kirito had returned to the world of the conscious, he returned different. He was silent for the rest of that day, and for the rest of that week for the matter. He had dark thoughts that started to brew in his mind, the old Uchiha hatred was festering within him. It took the combined efforts of the Sandaime and Naruto to finally get him to speak, but when he did it was not the same cheerful Kirito they once knew. He had changed completely, he barely spoke, and all he did was train.

When Naruto asked why he kept on pushing himself Kirito replied that he wanted to get strong quickly so that he could kill Itachi. Naruto tried a lot of things to break his best friend's new hate filled mentality but nothing seemed to be working.

On one day though Kirito challenged Naruto to a spar, and Naruto accepted. Kirito, during that spar fought like someone who was possessed, going so far as to force Naruto to be serious against him. Their spar turned into a fight, one that destroyed one of the Uchiha training grounds, and nearly destroyed Naruto and Kirito's friendship. The fight had escalated to the point where Kirito had nearly killed Naruto, only for Naruto to reveal his ultimate jutsu, the rasengan, thus giving him the victory.

A battered and bruised Kirito got the tongue lashing of a life time from his friend after the fight, and he could not even move away from it since their fight had resulted in him getting a few broken bones. Naruto told him about how much of an idiot he was and how they both nearly died that day because of his arrogance. The tongue lashing lasted for nearly half an hour before Naruto finally stopped talking.

In the end of it all Kirito asked him one question that changed Kirito once more, this time into the Kirito of today. "_What makes you so strong?"_ that was the question that was asked by Kirito to Naruto. Being an Uchiha, Kirito valued strength above anything else. Naruto told him the truth about him fighting to not only better himself, but also to uphold his ideals, along with his parents' ideals. He also made Kirito see that the ideals he fought for would not have made his parents proud in the least, instead he was spitting upon their memory.

In the end Kirito changed once more, where under the guidance of Naruto, and sometimes Tenzo, he gained control of himself and his emotions, turning him into the calm person that everyone sees Kirito as today.

The fight did a lot of things for both Kirito and Naruto. One being that it restored their friendship. Two being that Kirito met a near death experience when Naruto had shoved a low powered rasengan into his gut, thus awakening Kirito's Sharingan. They decided to keep the secret about Kirito and his Sharingan between themselves for now, although the Sandaime somehow found out about it (he saw the fight through his crystal ball), and he apparently told Tenzo about it, so whenever Tenzo was not teaching Naruto to master his jutsu, he was training Kirito as well. In order for Kirito to master his Sharingan the Sandaime had Kakashi take Kirito under his wing whenever he was not busy with ANBU missions, thus allowing Kirito to expand his knowledge of his bloodline.

The third thing that the fight did for them was draw the attention of the other Uchiha left in Konoha, Uchiha Sasuke. Apparently the fight had become so loud that Sasuke, who was using another training field located in the Uchiha compound, heard it and when he rushed over to see what was going on he was blown away but what he saw. He saw both Kirito and Naruto duke it out, only for Naruto to defeat Kirito in the end with a weird glowing ball made out of chakra.

An Uchiha was defeated by a non-Uchiha; something he had begun to think was inconceivable. He knew who Kirito was, being the only other Uchiha that lived in the compound made him easy to remember. Kirito and Sasuke did not get along well at all. Kirito saw Sasuke as a weak nuisance, and Sasuke just did not have the time to care about anything either than killing his parents' murderer, so Kirito was of little importance to him in the grand scheme of things. But after what he saw of Kirito's fight with Naruto he decided to try and get Kirito to train him…well, more like demanded to be trained by him.

Kirito turned him down simply because he thought of him as a snobbish brat who had a stick that was the size of Mandingo's dick shoved up his ass. So that lead Sasuke into continuously hounding Kirito whenever he could so that Kirito could train him. When Sasuke realised that Kirito would not train him Naruto was Sasuke's next target, but unfortunately Naruto blew him off as well, telling him that if he made killing Itachi his main goal then he would not go anywhere in life.

Naruto, from that day onwards had become someone Sasuke wanted to defeat badly. He may have been a non-Uchiha, but he had already seen that this guy was strong enough to defeat an Uchiha, something which only the Senju could accomplish, but they were long gone, so now the only people who could beat an Uchiha was an Uchiha…Naruto was just an exception to the rule.

Naruto was a measuring stick for Sasuke, just like how he was for Kirito. Imagine that, the great Uchiha clan using a non-Uchiha as a measuring stick.

Kirito held a lot of respect for his friend, and the same could be said about Naruto, as he respected Kirito more than anyone else. Though Kirito had changed his main goals in life he still swore to one day find Itachi and kill him for what he had done to his clan, his family.

Kirito and Naruto continued to stare at each other for a few more minutes, before they were given the go ahead to start fighting when a leaf that was aimlessly travelling through the wind decided to land right in the middle of the battle field. They were off like bullets, both quickly reaching to their backs for their respective weapons, Naruto drawing out a pitch black chokuto while Kirito withdrew his black katana. These weapons were made for the Yondaime Hokage, despite not being a kenjutsu specialist; the man knew how to use a blade without cutting himself.

The swords were made using the same material that was used when making the infamous Hiraishin kunai. Both blades also had the same markings that were found on the Hiraishin kunai on their hilts, although Naruto's was barely visible due to his chokuto's hilt being black, hence why his was not simply written onto the hilt using a brush, it was instead carved onto the hilt, probably via the use of a very sharp kunai. Kirito's was painted onto his hilt, but was completely hidden due to the fact that his katana's red hilt had a black cloth wrapped around it.

The two swords clashed causing an audible clang to be heard throughout the clearing as the two kenjutsu trainees clashed blades with each other. The two then stayed like that for a few seconds, with their swords interlocked, both fighting for supremacy as they pushed against each other before Naruto was finally able to push Kirito back a few feet. Kirito quickly jumped back when he realised that their battle of attrition had been won by Naruto. Naruto decided to keep pressing against Kirito, and he used impressive speeds to reach Kirito and he threw in a vertical slash at the Uchiha, only for Kirito to block with his katana using his right hand, while his left hand dug deep into his pouch and quickly withdrew a kunai and attempted to slash at Naruto using said kunai.

Naruto had seen what Kirito wanted to do, so he quickly retreated by back peddling twice. Kirito rushed in at Naruto, and when he was close enough he threw his kunai at Naruto, causing the blonde to use his sword to parry it to his right hand side, but that split second distraction allowed Kirito the opportunity to gain an opening on Naruto, which he took quickly when he slashed at Naruto.

It was as if time seemed to have slowed down when the next part of their fight happened. In order for Naruto to dodge Kirito's slash he let go of his outstretched sword causing it to fall down towards the ground very slowly, while he quickly ducked underneath Kirito's slash by crouching low and placing his hands on the ground, and when Kirito's sword had completely passed over him he quickly performed an impromptu hand stand, with both of his feet going into the air while his hands remained rooted to the ground, and his upside down back was the part that faced Kirito. He quickly unleashed two upside down kicks at Kirito, one on his chest, the other on his chin, causing the Uchiha to stumble backwards, and while that happened Naruto's chokuto, which was still in mid-air, was given a swift kick by its owner and it flew towards Kirito. It was by pure luck alone that the sword did not impale Kirito, as it instead sailed past him, only nicking his left shoulder before it got stuck on the ground a few metres away just as its owner flipped himself into an upright position.

All of that happened within three seconds in real time.

Kirito quickly recovered from his friend's impromptu attack and he quickly noticed that Naruto was without his sword. This caused a small smirk to appear on his face as he rushed at Naruto looking to capitalise on his advantage. Naruto had seen Kirito's smirk, and he knew that he had to move quickly or else he would be skewered by Kirito. He quickly back peddled just as Kirito came towards him, all the while he thought about how he would get his chokuto back from where it was. Since Naruto was back peddling, and Kirito was not, as he was sprinting towards Naruto, it was easy for him to close down Naruto. Kirito slashed at Naruto a few times, Naruto dodged every single time thanks to his quick reflexes and his speed.

Naruto, whilst dodging Kirito's sword assault, had quickly come up with a plan to even things out a little. While ducking and weaving under Kirito's slashes Naruto brought his hands together to form the only hand seal required for his favourite jutsu. With his fingers placed in a cross-like manner Naruto gathered chakra and mentally intoned the name of his jutsu, _'Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)'_, and almost immediately a clone popped into existence in front of Naruto, with it already crouched low as it attempted a low sweeping kick at Kirito, who was forced to change from offence to defence as he jumped into the air in order to avoid the sweep, that was before he noticed that he had fallen into a trap when he met the original Naruto who was already in mid-air and he received a solid kick to the face that caused him to fly backwards and fall on his back.

The original Naruto landed on the ground gracefully while his clone simply stood up and they both looked at Kirito as he slowly got up from the ground. Naruto quickly took out a kunai from his pouch and he put it by his mouth. Naruto proceeded to blow out a low of wind chakra from his mouth and onto the kunai's blade, the results were instantaneous. Within a few seconds Naruto's seemingly normal Kunai had now grown in reach as it was now the size of a normal sword. Naruto had performed a feat that was supposedly many years ahead of him. He had channelled Fuuton chakra in its purest form through his kunai and it resulted in him getting a sword made out of pure Fuuton chakra instead of a normal kunai.

Now things were a bit more even in Naruto's book. He could not keep on constantly channelling Fuuton chakra through his kunai since it took a lot of control that was supposedly beyond his years. Despite being able to channel Fuuton chakra into a non-chakra conductive blade, he knew that it would not last long due to his kunai's ordinary properties.

Naruto had discovered this technique in the book on Fuuton mastery, where it was written as a side note by this Danzou person that it was better to channel wind chakra from your mouth onto a weapon than channelling it through your hands, that's what the book told him to do, channel Fuuton chakra through his hands. He took all of the advice this Danzou character gave him to heart and it helped him a lot, this was one of them.

Naruto refocused his thoughts from his training days to the battle that he was currently facing, and he immediately rushed at Kirito at high speeds, once again displaying his natural aptitude in the speed department just like his old man. Naruto was onto Kirito just as said Uchiha had finished standing up. Naruto made a downwards slash at Kirito who immediately jumped, forcing Naruto to come at him again and try to close him down some more, but just as he was on Kirito once more, the Uchiha sent a vertical slash at Naruto, who blocked it with his own unique chakra blade. Kirito withdrew his sword from its clashing position with Naruto's chakra blade and then proceeded to launch more slashes at Naruto.

Naruto dodged Kirito's slashes for a few seconds before he used speeds he knew where superior to Kirito's and slashed at the Uchiha, only to get surprised when Kirito dodged easily, but he put it behind him as he continued to launch slashes and stabs at Kirito, at a slightly higher speed, only to continue being baffled as Kirito dodged every single one of his slashes and stabs, and then Kirito surprised him by intercepting one of his sword strikes with his katana in his right hand, before he used his left hand to grab Naruto and fling him across the clearing. This action also served to break Naruto's concentration, and thus his chakra blade became nothing but a normal kunai.

Naruto was able to flip himself in mid-air before landing in an upright position, with his back facing Kirito. Something seemed wrong to Naruto. He knew that when it came to speed he was faster than Kirito so why was he being the one that was being man handled. Naruto heard footsteps sounding behind him and turned around just in time to intercept Kirito's sword slash with his ordinary kunai held in a reverse grip. He looked ready to attack Kirito again when he realised something. He took a glimpse at Kirito's eyes and saw that they were their normal black colour, but still something felt off.

Quickly disengaging from their battle of attrition Naruto back pedalled a few feet looking to gain some ground, but Kirito had other plans as he came forward at Naruto looking to squeeze the blonde into a tight corner. Naruto saw this and put his hands in a cross seal once more before he intoned, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)" and once more created a copy of himself. The shadow clone ran at Kirito, stopping the Uchiha in his tracks while the original Naruto sought to test out his theory.

He created enough space between himself and Kirito before he put his hands together in order to form the ram seal and he gathered chakra in his body before releasing it in a single blast wave that was just internal since the chakra he gathered was really small, but it served its purpose.

Naruto looked on as his clone was destroyed by Kirito's sword slash, before the Uchiha set his sights on him. Their eyes made contact, and that's when Naruto realised how Kirito was able to keep up with his movements despite using speeds that were above Kirito. Kirito's once seemingly onyx eyes were now red, and they had three tomoe in each eye.

"Well I'll be damned, even after all the precautions I took when fighting against a Sharingan wielder you were still able to lay a genjutsu on me." Said Naruto in an impressed tone, "Although I would not mind knowing how you did it?"

Kirito looked at his best friend and smirked, "Well its simple really…I noticed that every time we fought, whenever I used my Sharingan you never made direct eye contact with me, but when I was not using my Sharingan you made direct eye contact with me without a worry in the world."

"So you camouflaged your eyes using genjutsu?" Naruto asked.

"Yes." Kirito said in an amused manner.

"Impressive, I can't believe you had something like that up your sleeve, though I would like to know something…" Naruto said.

"Sure, ask away." said Kirito.

"How were you able to camouflage your eyes when I had my eyes on you the entire time?" Naruto asked.

"Hmm, well that's really easy; do remember when you knocked me down a while back?" Kirito asked.

Naruto just nodded his head at that, though he had already figured out what his friend was going to say next, he still wanted to hear it just so he could confirm his suspicions.

"Well I simply cast the genjutsu over my eyes while you weren't looking at my eyes since they were focused downwards onto the ground."

"I see…well enough small talk." said Naruto.

With that the fighting recommenced. Just as Kirito was closing down on Naruto, said Uzumaki just held out his right arm stretched out to the side, and almost instantly a sword found itself in his hands, it was his chokuto. Kirito saw this and decided to take a look towards the side of the clearing where the blade was supposed to be stuck in and he found out that there was a Naruto clone standing next to the spot where the blade had been.

This made Kirito wonder a little. When did Naruto summon forth a Kage Bunshin as all they did was talk? Naruto may have been faster than him at weaving hand seals but he wasn't that fast that he would be able to bypass the Sharingan. And then it hit him like a ton of bricks, the Bunshin he was looking at was the very first one Naruto had summoned shortly before he was kicked into the ground. Naruto never dispelled that clone, it must have hidden away in the trees until it could find a window of opportunity to snatch the blade and give it to its owner. Damn it! Naruto knew that he had camouflaged his eyes before he asked him, along with how he did it. He talked to him just to stall so his clone could retrieve the chokuto, sneaky bastard.

Their battle recommenced when Kirito met Naruto at the centre of the clearing where their blades yet again, but this time though Naruto decided to not let another battle of attrition start again, so he quickly went for a leg sweep which was easily dodged by Kirito when he jumped backwards, but just as he reached the apex of his jump Kirito was hit by an invisible force that threw him sideways, forcefully making him let go of his ninjato.

Naruto quickly ran after Kirito after said Uchiha was blown across the clearing by his Kage Bunshin's Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Style: Great Breakthrough). Naruto sheathed his chokuto while running towards Kirito and quickly came upon the form of the downed Uchiha before jumping up and smashing his fist into the ground where Kirito's head had previously been before he moved it.

Kirito quickly kicked himself into an upright position, but his timing was a little off and as a result he received a solid punch to the jaw from Naruto, before Naruto spun on his right leg and proceeded to unleash a left footed spinning kick upon Kirito launching him a few feet into the air before Naruto jumped into the air and proceeded to give Kirito a downward heel drop, sending Kirito into the ground hard enough to create a small crater. Naruto landed a few feet away from Kirito and just stood still as he waited for Kirito to stand up once more.

Kirito continued to lie down on his back for about another minute, this caught Naruto's suspicion, so he put his hands together to form the ram seal and proceeded try and see if he was in a genjutsu, and sure enough the Kirito that was in front of him disappeared, that was before Naruto was met with the sound of something that was howling and headed towards him, so he turned around just in time to bear witness to a dragon made of flames headed towards him. The dragon honed in on Naruto and proceeded to incinerate him.

Kirito watched on from his position perched up on a tree a few feet away as Naruto was enveloped by his Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu (Fire Style: Dragon Flame Jutsu). This was his strongest jutsu. He had never done it before in their training or spars whenever they were together, he had hoped to surprise Naruto by catching him off guard by using the Jutsu for the first time outside of his own practice, but he was wrong it seems. Naruto had definitely dodged that. He managed to escape the genjutsu he had trapped him in before the intended time.

The Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu takes a lot out of him since it's a jutsu a few years ahead of him but still, for a twelve year old pre-genin he knew he had done well enough with the jutsu for now.

Before Kirito could continue to process anything else he heard Naruto's voice cry out from behind in a few feet away, "Fuuton: Shinkuugyokuu (Wind Style: Vacuum Sphere)".

Kirito quickly launched himself off the tree he was perched on, but that was a mistake on his part. While in mid-air, after having launched himself from the tree, he came across Naruto, who had a swirling ball of chakra in his right hand, and he had a smug grin on his face, one that translated to "checkmate".

Naruto held up the swirling ball of chakra before he impaled Kirito in the stomach and cried out, "Rasengan!" and the jutsu proceeded to launch Kirito into the ground once more, harder than before, thus creating an even larger crater than before. Naruto landed on the ground gracefully one more and looked at his friend with a smug look on his face.

Kirito slowly stood up and held his stomach in pain. The rasengan Naruto had hit him with was a low powered one, meaning that it would not kill him, but it still packed enough power behind it to put Kirito out of the match. He knew it, and so did Naruto, there was no need to fake it, Naruto knew he had this match won already when he impaled Kirito with the rasengan.

"You win again." said Kirito with a pain filled smile on his face.

"Yeah, I guess you still suck." said Naruto in a joking manner to his best friend.

"Says the guy who was a sucker for my genjutsu…twice." replied Kirito with a smirk while still holding onto his abdomen.

"Hmm, aren't you the guy who fell for my ruse when I had a Kage Bunshin pretend to launch a jutsu from behind you just to bring you out into the open."

"Touché." was all that Kirito said.

Before Naruto could say anything else, there was a clapping sound that originated from deep within the trees that surrounded the clearing. The two friends turned towards the sound, and they were greeted by the sight of their impromptu sensei walking out of the clearing next to each other. Tenzo and Kakashi walked out of the clearing, both clapping their hands and nodding their heads in approval.

"That was a very nice battle you two." said Tenzo.

"Indeed…" said Kakashi as well.

The two veterans were not lying about their statements. The two kids battled like experienced shinobi. They gathered information from their previous battles with each other and used it to their advantage. Kirito knew that Naruto had a weakness for genjutsu, and he utilised it well, and Naruto knew that Kirito was not as good as he was at Taijutsu, which was majorly apparent in their battle. Naruto also knew that Kirito was afraid of his Fuuton: Shinkuugyokuu since Kirito was once hit by the jutsu, where it drilled a hole in his shoulder that put Kirito out of commission for two weeks. It was possible to say that Kirito was more afraid of the Shinkuugyokuu than he was of the rasengan.

When it came to Kenjutsu the two Jounin saw that they were about even. Naruto was superior in speed, but Kirito had the Sharingan to even out the odds a little bit.

All in all this is how things stood between the two pre-genin:

Ninjutsu: Naruto

Taijutsu: Naruto

Genjutsu: Kirito

Kenjutsu: Even

So Naruto was currently stronger than Kirito, but not by much. Kirito may have not been on Uchiha Itachi's level when it came to being a prodigy, but he was one in his own right. Naruto though was something that was a little bit scary to both Jounin. Naruto had refrained from using his true speed throughout the fight; he wanted to make things were even between the two of them.

Naruto was really fast, how fast though only Naruto knew. Naruto had a special knack for Ninjutsu, especially powerful and potentially dangerous Ninjutsu. His weakest jutsu from what they had seen was the Fuuton: Daitoppa and even then that was a high C-rank, low B-rank jutsu.

His other Jutsu were B-rank or higher. Over the years Naruto had accomplished training regiments that even a few Jounin would think twice before attempting. The training he was given by Tenzo made him sweat blood and tears. Tenzo had kept good on his promise to help Naruto become better, and as it stood Naruto was really strong, stronger than any genin, and possibly any chunin in the village.

Rasengan, Kage Bunshin, and Fuuton: Shinkuugyokuu and a few tricks were part of Naruto's arsenal. People said that Uchiha Itachi was the second coming of the Yondaime Hokage, well they were wrong, as Kakashi and Tenzo could clearly see that Naruto was like his father in every way when it came to being a shinobi. Fast and extremely unpredictable and uncanny.

Kirito was an Uchiha so Katon was in his blood. To see him perform a B-rank Katon Jutsu was astounding, especially when considering that he was not even a genin yet. He had a fully matured Sharingan already, and he was strong enough to try and contest with the second coming of the Yondaime Hokage (Naruto) as a rival. These two were scary. Kakashi wondered how powerful they would be when they reached their prime.

"Alright senseis…" spoke Naruto knocking Kakashi out of his stupor, "what's going to happen next?" Naruto finished.

"Well…" said Kakashi, "we can't teach you guys anymore since you're going to become official shinobi of Konoha tomorrow, and that will mean that you will be assigned to a Jounin sensei who will teach you guys whatever you need to know."

"What? Why don't any of you guys take us on as your students?" asked Naruto a bit frantically.

"Well to be honest, what we did was uncalled for really, as we personally mentored two academy students we have no blood relation to, if this were to get out it would be seen as favouritism." said Kakashi once more.

"Then why did you do it?" asked Naruto.

"Because we would have been foolish in letting two natural born geniuses such as you two have their potential wasted by the academy…don't get me wrong, the academy is good for theory, but that's as far as it goes really. You two will one day be the face of Konoha when you defend it, so to make sure that we stay a step ahead of other villages we needed to make you strong, and that has to be done fast."

"I get that, but why can't you guys take us as senseis?"

"Well, Tenzo and I are more valuable elsewhere, but another reason is that as I have previously stated, you two have been taught all we could teach you. Kirito finally managed to get a fully matured Sharingan and you Naruto are someone that neither Tenzo nor I could really teach…we were just here to help with fixing up any mistakes you made, but now all you need is experience because that is what you two lack right now, and experience is not something that can be taught. It can only be gained."

Naruto just sighed out loud since Kakashi did speak the truth. Now that he was officially becoming a Konoha genin he would have to be at his best, and he would have to work hard to gain all the things he wanted in life. Getting the recognition of all of Konoha, and maybe become Hokage, he was not as stupid as to believe that he could live up until the day came for him to be Hokage, he knew that he might die one day on the battle field. Getting a hot girlfriend would be a great side benefit; that was for sure.

The girls in his class weren't that attractive to him, and they did not give him the time of day since they saw him as a squirt (despite his superiority in the shinobi arts) since Naruto was two years younger than anyone else.

"Want to grab some lunch, bro?" spoke Naruto.

"Definitely. Just as long as _she_ isn't there." answered Kirito with a slight shiver.

"I don't know what you don't like about her; she's pretty cool in my book." said Naruto nonchalantly.

"That's because she doesn't fawn over you like she does with me." said Kirito.

"Whatever, you just can't handle the female part of our species. It must be an Uchiha thing, since I heard that your favourite cousin, Sasuke, has developed his own fan club…but he just does the "Kirito" thing, and he ignores them."

"Go eat your toes, Naruto…you have no idea how scary females can be."

"You forget that I live with a banshee at home."

"Yep, and now you see why I don't want her to be there."

"Whatever, let's just go." said Naruto.

"Naruto, wait." said Kakashi as another thought registered in his mind.

"What is it, Kakashi-san?" said Naruto. He never ever called Kakashi "sensei" simply because he was not. Kakashi just mentored Kirito from time to time, that's it. Naruto had his own sensei in the form of Tenzo, and he was fine with that.

"You never told me how the chokuto felt." said Kakashi.

"Oh, that…well it is actually better to use than the ninjato that's for sure since it's lighter, thus it can accommodate my style of fast fighting easier than the ninjato could." said Naruto after having given Kakashi's question some thought.

"See? I told you it would be better suited for you." said Kakashi, with pride evident in his voice as he spoke.

"Yeah, whatever…"said Naruto with a shrug.

Kakashi had seen Naruto use a ninjato for the last two years and despite being good at it, it never quite fit with him, and when he asked Naruto to use a chokuto, well the results spoke for themselves.

Naruto walked up to Kirito and hooked his best friend's arm over his shoulder before he disappeared in a Shunshin, with his friend in tow.

As soon as they were gone Kakashi let out a long but low whistle, catching Tenzo's attention, where said man asked, "What's wrong, Senpai?"

"Nothing much, I was just thinking about how those two would have surpassed us by the time they hit sixteen."

"Wow," said Tenzo with a straight look on his face, "that's kind of scary really, those two surpassing us before they even hit their prime. I guess this just means that we need to up our training to make it more difficult for them to surpass us, huh, senpai?"

"Meh, meh Tenzo, you can do that if you want to, I just recently got out of ANBU and I want to spend some down time…well ja ne." with his peace said, Kakashi disappeared in a Shunshin as well leaving Tenzo in the clearing on his own. Tenzo just sighed out loud at his senpai's laid back attitude. Kakashi had been released a few months prior to today. Kakashi had trained Kirito since he was in ANBU on the few occasions when he could find time to do so, since he was the last Sharingan user in Konoha. Funny really, how the Sandaime had planned on keeping Kakashi in ANBU, only for him to take on a part-time student after the boy's clan was murdered.

From what Tenzo knew Kakashi took on Kirito as his part-time student simply because he owed it to helping his best friend's clan get restored after their mass slaughtering, and it was also because of the fact that Kirito was Naruto's best friend, one of his only friends.

Kakashi stepped out of the shadows that were inhabited by ANBU a few months ago, and he was back to being a regular Jounin, rumour had it he was planning on taking on a squad, but Tenzo was never a strong believer of rumours.

Speaking of squads, Tenzo did not know where Naruto and Kirito would end up tomorrow. He had previously discussed the issue with the Sandaime Hokage, and although Konoha's ranking system makes sure that the best student is put together with the worst student, Naruto and Kirito were tied for everything at the academy, so they were supposedly going to be put together, Tenzo did not know who their third team mate was going to be.

And that's when an idea hit him like a rock avalanche. He might not have known who the two boys would be partnered with, but the Sandaime Hokage did. With that thought in mind Tenzo utilised the Shunshin no Jutsu as well and disappeared from the clearing without a single trace of his existence.

**Hokage Tower**

Tenzo arrived at the Hokage Tower a few minutes later, where he appeared outside the door of the Hokage's office. He did not want to just appear in a Shunshin in the Hokage's office since no one knew what was going on inside the office; the old geezer might be secretly reading his student's porn novel and Tenzo did not want to just walk into the Hokage's office and experience a moment of awkwardness involving him and a perverted old man. So that's why he chose to appear outside his office before he knocked on the Hokage's door.

"Come in." Tenzo heard the Hokage's voice call from inside the office.

Tenzo walked into the office of the most powerful ninja in Konoha today, and to his immense relief, the Sandaime Hokage was not reading porn, he was currently swearing at the stack of papers that were in his desk.

Tenzo closed the door behind him and walked up to the Hokage's desk, and silently stood there, waiting until the Hokage addressed him. Tenzo stood still for nearly a minute, before the Hokage said to him, "What can I do for you, Tenzo?"

Tenzo cleared his throat a little before he spoke, "Well, Hokage-sama, today was the last day in my two year training mission of Uzumaki Naruto…and well I wanted to know…um, I wanted to find out who he might be teamed up with."

Hiruzen smiled a little after hearing Tenzo's request. When this mission had started out it was all about training Naruto through and through. To him it was a mission, nothing more, nothing less. But as time flew by Tenzo ended up caring about Naruto on a personal level, giving him someone else to care for, and giving Naruto someone else he could count on to watch over him. The true reason he had chosen Tenzo to be Naruto's sensei was known to him and him alone. Naruto was not the only person in Konoha who needed an emotional fix; Tenzo was in need of one as well.

Due to Tenzo being the only one who survived Orochimaru's experimentation with the Shodai Hokage's DNA, where the end result was Tenzo gaining the Mokuton kekkei genkai, Tenzo never truly had a good childhood, or any for that matter.

Because of his Mokuton ability Tenzo had to be kept hidden from the village, as they did not want Orochimaru to try and get his hands on him if he ever found out that his experiment bore one fruit, because as far as Hiruzen was sure Orochimaru knew, there was no survivor of that crazy experimentation program.

Tenzo was trained in a similar manner to what had just been done to Naruto, although for him it was purely for the ANBU black-ops. Tenzo was trained by ANBU for ANBU. He never really truly made friends as he was forced to adopt a strict persona, the end result being a harsher Tenzo than the one of today. It was through his relationship with Kakashi that he was able to gain back his humanity, though neither of them would admit it but Kakashi was Tenzo's first true friend. The end result of that friendship being the Tenzo of today, to some extent.

Naruto and Kirito also helped to make Tenzo more human over the last two years, and the proof of that was in Tenzo's request about who Naruto would fall under, and this made Hiruzen smile a little since he already had somebody in mind.

"Well, Tenzo," said Hiruzen, "as I'm sure you already know, Naruto-kun will be teamed up with Kirito, right?"

Tenzo just nodded at that as it had already been discussed ages ago.

"Well now the question I'm sure you want answered is who his other teammate is going to be, right?" asked Hiruzen in a sagely manner.

"Hai, Hokage-sama." replied Tenzo with a slight nod of his head.

"Well I am thinking about making it _her." _said Hiruzen.

"Wait Hokage-sama, you don't mean…?" asked Tenzo frantically, with a wide eyed expression.

"Yes, I mean her exactly." answered Hiruzen calmly.

"But Hokage-sama, Naruto-kun and Kirito-kun belong in an assault unit, putting her in-"

"-would balance things out. The boys are heavy hitters, and she is a medic, having her there would help them complete missions at a higher rate."

"True as that may be Hokage-sama, but with Kirito-kun on the team I don't think she could possibly focus on the team so much as Kirito. Medic or not, her crush on Kirito clearly clouds her mind as I am sure you have seen over the past few months, which would lead to her to being a liability more than an asset when on a mission."

Hiruzen just smiled at Tenzo and said, "You forget that Naruto-kun is on the team, and he can make her get her head in the game easily."

At that Tenzo had a look of understanding dawn onto his face. He now understood why the Sandaime Hokage put the girl on Naruto's team. If there was anyone she ever listened to it was Naruto.

"I get it now, sir." said Tenzo.

"Good." replied Hiruzen.

"What about their sensei?"

That question made Hiruzen smirk, and it was not the type of smirk you would ever want to come across as the only person in Konoha who had a more sinister looking smirk than Hiruzen right now would be Uzumaki Naruto. Tenzo knew this, and that's why he felt a slight shiver go up his spine.

**Naruto's Apartment**

Naruto arrived at his apartment after having grabbed lunch at Ichiraku Ramen with Kirito, where he down six bowls of ramen. Ever since he had begun training he had been steadily decreasing his ramen intake, and he has gone from twenty odd bowls a day to just six, there was no way he was ever going below six bowls. Naruto entered his apartment, and was immediately greeted by the smell of a heavenly aroma coming from the kitchen, so he closed the door to his apartment and walked to the kitchen.

When he entered the kitchen he was immediately greeted by the sight of a girl that was around his age, one who wore a pair of black shorts and boot-like shinobi sandals along with a yellow t-shirt and a pair of glasses. Her hair was red in colour and she had it straight on one side and spiky on the opposite side. This girl was Naruto's last living family member.

She was found by a team of Konoha chunin when they came across a ransacked town around six months ago, where she apparently was the only survivor.

Her name was Uzumaki Karin.

Karin did not remember much about the incident. All she remembered was that she was eating dinner with her parents when a large squad of shinobi who came from a village that apparently no-one knew of attacked their small town and ransacked it. According to what Karin was able to pick up in her haste to escape along with her parents was that the shinobi were from a village that wore a head band that had a musical note etched onto the metal plate, and they were looking for something, or someone, she was not sure.

What she was sure about was that she was the only survivor from the ransacking of her town, as no one, not even her parents made it out. Karin's parents had sacrificed themselves in order to make sure that Karin would live. They left her in a hidden area and they proceeded to act as decoys, drawing the shinobi away from her location, but they died in the process.

Karin was brought to Konoha by the Konoha shinobi that had found her and she was taken to hospital where she spent a week there. During her time in the hospital she was thoroughly questioned by the Hokage about her life, and when the Sandaime had discovered her to be an Uzumaki he introduced her to Naruto, where they hit it off the bat, as they both realised they still had family left in this world, even though they were long distant relatives.

It was also during her stay at the hospital that they discovered that Karin was a sensor, an extremely good sensor, where she was so powerful when it came to sensing that she could tell what type of person someone was without even uttering a word to them. This was discovered when Karin said that she sensed two people with blank, yet also pain filled chakra that was also cold and that they were hiding a few blocks away from the hospital, and they had been continuously watching her room like a hawk.

The Sandaime immediately knew that it was Danzou letting his paranoia get the best of him, resulting in him thinking that an eleven year old girl like Karin was a threat, if that were the case then the ANBU he had placed to watch over her would have reported it already. Karin was pretty harmless.

After she was released from hospital Karin was offered a place at the orphanage, but she refused, sighting that she would rather live with Naruto and that they had already discussed it and he had agreed. Karin was also given a monthly stipend just like Naruto, even though they did not need it thanks to the fact that Naruto was loaded, and they have been living together ever since.

Karin was also signed up for the academy, but she was moved up to Naruto's year instead of starting from scratch as it turned out that her parents, despite not being shinobi, were Uzumaki by nature, so that meant that they taught her how to mould chakra and control it just in case she wound up having large chakra reserves like most Uzumaki's or any kind of special chakra, but it turned out that she did not have to worry about that. Her chakra reserves were that of the average genin and she had perfect chakra control that allowed for her to study Iryo Ninjutsu (Medical Ninjutsu).

She was currently studying the art in her spare time, and also getting trained by Naruto to improve herself physically. Naruto tried to teach her Fuuinjutsu since she was an Uzumaki, but alas she was the black sheep among Uzumaki tradition as it turned out that she was not made for Fuuinjutsu.

Naruto watched his long distant cousin cooking their dinner without saying a word. There was no need to; since she was a sensor she would already be alerted to his presence.

Karin continued to hover over the stove while Naruto watched her saying nothing. They continued their game of silence for a few minutes, before Karin finally said, "Are we gonna do this forever or are you gonna greet your favourite cousin?"

"Favourite cousin? You're my only cousin." said Naruto sarcastically, which earned him a wooden spoon to the head when Karin turned around and quickly closed the distance between them before whacking him across the side of his head with it, eliciting an "itai!" from Naruto.

Naruto rubbed his head vigorously, while sulking at the fact that Karin just hit him, while said Uzumaki female just smiled like she was innocent.

After scrubbing his head with his hands for about a minute Naruto finally said, "So, what's cookin'?"

"What's cookin' is going to be you if you don't greet me properly." Karin said in a very scary way that made Naruto gulp a little.

"S-sorry Karin-nee, I meant to say what's up?"

That immediately earned him a wallop to the head once more, eliciting another "Itai!" from Naruto who quickly asked, "What the heck was that for?"

"That was for greeting me like I'm some uncouth creature. I said you must greet me properly, not like you're greeting a street vender!" Karin all but shouted at Naruto.

Naruto just rubbed his head some more before he just stood up and walked into the hallway. He stopped there briefly when an idea came to mind and a smile etched itself onto his face, and he said, "You know, Kirito doesn't like temper mental women."

With that he just disappeared with a smoke Shunshin no Jutsu promising to come back by dinner time, leaving behind a very frantic Karin who was screaming at the top of her lungs for Naruto to return, and seemingly asking no one but the walls if what Naruto said was true.

**The Next Day – Konoha Shinobi Academy**

Konoha's shinobi academy was seen as the greatest shinobi academy in the entire elemental nations…well when it was compared to nations that actually had academies, and it turns out that only Konoha has one. Suna, Kumo, Kiri and Iwa, the other four nations that represent the big five also don't have any academies. If they truly did have academies like Konoha then maybe they could be in the running for strongest shinobi village, but unfortunately that is not the case, hence why Konoha's academy is seen as the best since it is the only one around. In other nations shinobi just take on students under their wing and hope to train them well, which is how it always has been.

Naruto found it kind of funny how Konoha was perceived as the current strongest nation even after they have suffered more than any other shinobi village over the past twenty odd years. From barely making it out of the Third Shinobi War as victors, to barely surviving the Kyuubi attack that lead to the death of Konoha's greatest hero, the Yondaime Hokage, his old man, and to finally losing what was the strongest clan in the shinobi world when one of their own decided to eradicate them for good.

If all of these things happened and Konoha still remained on top then the other villages must be pretty weak. It was either that, or Konoha had a good poker face. Naruto guessed that the Sandaime worked his shinobi into the ground so that he could keep face with the rest of the world, sending shinobi on back to back missions up until things got better. That was probably what he would have done if he were in a similar situation. Guess the old geezer really does deserve to be called the Professor.

Sure Konoha had some powerful shinobi in their ranks, but then again so did every shinobi village, major or minor. And it did not matter which village one came from, all that did matter was whether or not they were strong. Shanshuo no Hanzo (Hanzo of the Salamander) once fought against Konoha's most legendary team of shinobi, the Densetsu no Sannin and he defeated them by himself, proving the point about not needing to be a shinobi of the big five in order to be strong.

Before Naruto realised it he was standing in front of his class room here at the academy, he had been walking and day dreaming for so long that he almost walked past his class.

Naruto slid the door to his class open, and then he entered it. Naruto was greeted by a sight he found to be quite familiar. His class room was beige in colour and it boasted twenty odd students, most of them were civilians, but three were from clans. The first person was Kirito who belonged to the Uchiha, the second being Naruto who belonged to a clan that was never really a part of Konoha, the Uzumaki clan, and the third being Karin, who also belonged to the Uzumaki clan.

Naruto looked at the seats in the class and he immediately saw where he wanted to go. Naruto walked up to the third row where his cousin and best friend were located, and he proceeded to take a seat next to them. He did not say anything since he wanted Kirito to suffer a little, and because he did not want to incur Karin's wrath for disturbing their "romantic" setting. Naruto just watched the two of them interact; Karin was looking at Kirito dreamily, and also trying to ask him out on a date, while Kirito just pretended that Karin was not there.

A minute after Naruto had sat down Kirito finally noticed his best friend, and hoping to escape from the clutches of his friend's cousin he quickly said, "Hey, Naruto…what's up?"

"Nothing much." replied Naruto, and Naruto could have sworn he heard a sigh of relief from his friend when Karin finally shut up and decided to turn and look at Naruto while he spoke.

"Okay, I guess, anyway who do you think will be your teammates?" asked Kirito hoping to continue the conversation long enough to distract Karin from, something Kirito has dubbed, her fan-girl mode.

"What do you mean your teammates?" asked a slightly confused Karin.

"Well," Naruto explained to his cousin, "Konoha has a team system that they make genin fall into when they graduate from the academy. The genin are put in a four man cell which includes one Jounin and three genin. The Jounin acts as their sensei, mentor and also as a baby-sister." Naruto said the last part as if he were laughing slightly.

"Baby-sitter?" asked Karin.

"I'm just joking with you, the Jounin are not babysitters…but anyway back to my main point…Jounin are the sensei to the genin and will only stop being their sensei once they reach the level of chunin. Once you reach that level you are dubbed to be good enough to do things on your own, hence why the Jounin is forced to drop you as a sensei."

"Whoa, how come this was never discussed in the academy before?" asked Karin.

"Don't know…don't really care." Naruto spoke nonchalantly.

"Well, how did you find all this out?" asked Karin once again.

"My special instructor." said Naruto in a low whisper as he did not think it best to say it out loud for all to hear.

"Okay, whatever." said Karin with a slight shrug before turning to her own thoughts about the way things were.

Kirito was a person she had a major crush on, and whenever she asked him out he just rejected her, stating reasons like "not being ready for a relationship" and a whole lot more. Kirito was the guy that all the girls around their age wanted. He was Captain Charisma, he was cool, strong, smart, and best of all he was hot. Kirito was just the right guy for Karin, although he did not know it. She vowed to one day make him see the light.

Naruto was her last living relative as far as she knew. He was a very intellectual person when it came to many things, but he was quiet stupid when it came to others, you know, the obvious ones. Things like a girl having a crush on him, and the biggest of them all, the reason why a large number of the village populace don't like him, the fact that he was the Jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no Yoko.

Karin found out about him having the fox stuck in his gut when she was pushing her sensory skills to the max, and it was through this that she was able to sense the power of the fox residing in Naruto. At first she did not know what it was, all she knew was that the power was dark, foul and extremely potent. She found out a week after she sensed the power that resided within Naruto when she could not take it any longer, and she went into the Sandaime Hokage's office and asked him if he knew what it was.

The old man was shocked when she told him about her ability to sense the evil power that lay dormant inside Naruto. He could have lied to her and made up a bullshit story but he chose not to, he told her the truth, and after that he made her swear to secrecy about the entire matter, for Naruto's sake.

It took a while for Karin to get accustomed to the truth, but once she did it was like she had never found out who, or exactly what Naruto was.

Jinchuriki were often hated and scorned by their village, and Naruto was no different in terms of his treatment. But unlike other Jinchuriki Naruto did not lash out or become an emo or something worse, he instead chose to use the love and admiration he received from the few people that saw him for what he was as fuel to motivate himself into working towards a future where all of Konoha would finally accept him.

Karin could not say that she would have done the same, but hey, no one in the world was like Naruto, and no will ever be like him.

Karin was broken out of her thoughts when a chunin instructor that had black hair, brown eyes and a small stub on his chin and a regulation Konoha shinobi uniform walked into the class. His name was Kenji, and he was their sensei.

"Alright class, settle down." said Kenji in a loud voice.

The class slowly descended the decibels of their noise making until there was not even a whisper that could be heard.

"Good, I'm glad you finally shut up…" he said nonchalantly, getting a few sweat drops from the class.

"…now, congratulations to you all for making it through the academy, but now you guys need to know that you will be heading to the real world, where you will witness things that you never imagined, both good and bad. Just remember what we taught you here and you will be fine."

The entire class had looks of determination etched onto their faces as they got ready to tackle the world that awaited them.

"Now then, it's time to put you guy's into teams."

**END**

**To those that have read my other story, Naruto: The Great, you guys will know that that is where I took Kirito from. Now there is no rule that says that a writer can't use the same OC for a different story. I chose Kirito as Naruto's rival simply because I could not think of anyone better. **

**Anyway as for not really showing what Naruto can do, the next chapter will take care of that. **

**As for Karin being included in the story I decided to go for a female in the Naruto fanverse that is never really used as one of the good guys. I promise I won't make her as pathetic as she is in the anime, but I won't make her too strong either. I have a secret of hers that will be revealed in either the next chapter, or the one following that one.**

**I know that I keep making mistakes, but what the heck can I do, I'm Zulu (for those that don't know what that is look it up, but just know that it's in South Africa, and that I'm South African).**

**Hint for next chapter "Chapter Four: Naruto's first big mission"**

**Until then,**

**I'm out. **


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